Character sketch

“ A character-study, whether in the form of a sketch, a tale, or a short-story, attempts to reveal individual human nature by the unfolding of the story.
In the sketch it will be a photograph of character in a striking mood, under stress of emotion, or just before, or during, or after a crisis that is peculiarly suited to showing either the full character or one of its interesting phases. Some photographs consist of bold masses of light and shade, others are so handled as to bring out a multitude of details. ”

“ If he was an ideal character, like the gifted hero of some novel or tragedy, his great deeds and his wise sayings the result of the imagination of some skilful artist, then we may admire the sketch as a beautiful picture. ”

“ In a sketch which she has given of her life, between twelve and seventeen years of age, we find evidence of an active, ardent, and social disposition, gay and buoyant spirits, persevering industry, and great decision of character. ”

“ It is true, sketches, or such drawings as painters generally make for their works, give this pleasure of imagination to a high degree. From a slight undetermined drawing, where the ideas of the composition and character are, as I may say, only just touched upon, the imagination supplies more than the painter himself, probably, could produce; and we accordingly often find that the finished work disappoints the expectation that was raised from the sketch; and this power of the imagination is one of the causes of the great pleasure we have in viewing a collection of drawings by great painters. ”

“ The sketch, characterized by rude vigor, lacks the truth and harmony essential to a beautiful work; these qualities are to be attained by the final touches of the hammer, or, as we should now say, of the chisel. So it is only the influence of the beloved person which can perfect the incomplete design of Nature, and bestow on the character its final excellence. ”

“ The personality sketch, or article that undertakes to present a vivid impression of the character and individuality of some person who plays a part in the news of the day, is another type of feature story that is popular. The interest of most readers in the human, personal side of famous or infamous characters in current events is so great that they eagerly read articles of this kind. Dates and facts of biography have little attraction for them; they want the man to be portrayed so vividly that they can see and know him. ”

“ It is said that the sketch of a whole lifetime, or of many years, is essential to the true development of character, which it is the great end of the drama to exhibit, because it is by the varied events of so long a period that we are made acquainted with it in real life. ”

“ We are inclined to think of quiet and truthful character sketchers, who reveal an appreciative knowledge of the influence of environment, as distinctly a late nineteenth century brotherhood; but the fact is that while moderate realism is undoubtedly the last artistic word on the subject of effective character-revelation, it is also the first. The modern novel of manners (and the artistic short-story of the same class as an offshoot of it) drew from a full stream of realism. As far back as the age of Overbury and Bishop Hall the public was interested in prose character-sketches. ”

“ I work very hard.”
“What way do you proceed then, cher maitre?”
“Well, I never prepare a plot. I cannot do it. I have frequently meditated for hours, buried my head in my hands, closed my eyes, and got ill over it. But no use. I finally gave it up. What I do is to make three kinds of studies for each novel. The first I call a sketch, viz., I determine the dominant idea of the book, and the elements required to develop this idea. I also establish certain logical connections between one series of facts and another. The next dossier contains a study of the character of each actor in my work. ”

“ Most, in the prettiest sense of the word, gentle artists indulge themselves in the ease, and even trust to the felicity of rapid—and even in a measure inconsiderate—work in sketching, so that the beauty of a sketch is understood to be consistent with what is partly unintentional. ”

“ I cried, "surely the whole experience of the human race is not to be set aside on account of a single sketch"—I had turned over the leaves and ascertained that there was nothing more in the book—"a single sketch by a wandering American artist who may have done it under hashish, or in the delirium of fever, or simply in order to gratify a freakish imagination. You can't, as a man of science, defend such a position as that." ”

“ Remember, then, that a good realistic sketch demands on your part an honest, and truthful purpose, a mind freed from the glamor of romance or climax, a sure eye, and exquisite workmanship, in the relation of an ordinary, every-day event. ”

“ How they seem to some one else, or seemed at some other time, is not to the point. What you know they are or may be will not help you, but only hinder you in a sketch. The more facts the worse, in sketching. Remember always what a sketch is for. Don't be beguiled into trying to make a picture of it, nor a study of it. ”

“ Technically it is a tale, with the picture-phrases of the sketch. It is a marvellous brief story rather than a marvellous short-story, which, as I have before remarked, must exhibit more plot, more complication, with its consequent dénouement, than is found in either the tale or the sketch. As a work of art, it ranks with the author’s most vivid stories. In the memorable phrase of Walter Pater, “Seldom or never has the mere pen of a writer taken us so close to the cannon’s mouth.” ”

“ As the cutter rounded the headland before spoken of, most of the party evinced their admiration of the scenery by expressions of delight, and the artist exhibited his skill by making a faithful sketch in a few minutes. ”

“ TO the keen, enthusiastic young artist there is nothing more fascinating, more enthralling, than sketching out of doors.
A walk abroad among foreign scenes and strange people or a walk at home among one's own familiar haunts can be equally fruitful.
There are one or two points which need explaining, and one or two pitfalls of which the novice might be warned.
For the ardent young sketcher frequently digs a pit for his own feet. He begins a 'sketch,' but he pursues it into a finished study.
A sketch, it must be remembered, should be a sketch and nothing more. ”

“ Dacier when you and I sit together, my Emmy, and a stroke here and there completes the painting. Set descriptions are good for puppets. Living men and women are too various in the mixture fashioning them—even the "external presentment"—to be livingly rendered in a formal sketch. ”

“ The grave incidents of the story are treated with good taste and genuine pathos, but enlivened by very amusing scenes, in which the ridiculous and vicious peculiarities of character, so often met with in real life, are cleverly hit off with a pencil which emulates the witty drollery of caricature without its coarseness."—Spectator. ”

“ I answer them, that I am drawing the sketch as faithfully as the artist, who transfers the living form to the canvas; that as it is scarcely possible to exaggerate the dying agonies of the malefactor transfixed by the dagger, and writhing in protracted tortures, that the painter may immortalize himself by the death-throes on which he is gazing; so the agonies of him,
"Who doubts, yet does, suspects, yet fondly loves,"
cannot be described in colors too deep and strong. ”

“ Like the other Persons of the Drama, in this book and in the books which have preceded it, he is drawn from my general observation of humanity. I have always considered it to be a mistake in Art to limit the delineation of character in fiction to a literary portrait taken from any one "sitter." ”

“ To these situations which naturally result from the story, Shakespeare has added in Olivia's household a set of characters whose personality is such that amusing situations are multiplied. Thus we may say that the play is one of situation rather than of action, since whatever of action there is in it leads to situation, and whatever of character there is in it leads also to situation.
QUERIES FOR DISCUSSION 1. If attention is constantly given to creating humorous situations, will character-development necessarily suffer? ”

“ The simplicity of a sketch, the comparative rapidity with which it is produced, the concentration of meaning demanded by its rigid economy of means, render it more symbolical, more like the hieroglyph of its maker's mind, than any finished work can be. We may discover a greater mass of interesting objects in a painted picture or a carved statue; but we shall never find exactly the same thing, never the involuntary revelation of the artist's soul, the irrefutable witness to his mental and moral qualities, to the mysteries of his genius and to its limitations. ”

“ To write a present-day realistic sketch you will not need to look far for a subject. Just divest yourself of preconceived ideas of the romantic in fiction, and begin anywhere. Everything is of interest to the realist. ”

“ She cannot be called a sketch—or if a sketch, she is like one of those dashed off in glowing colors from the rainbow pallette of a Rubens; she has a rich tinge of orientalism shed over her, worthy of her eastern origin. ”

“ Free from pedantry and technicalities, simple and straightforward in style, these sketches aim above all to acquaint the reader, and particularly the young, with the personality of the subjects, to make them live again while recounting their struggles and triumphs. ”

“ Just as the sketch was completed, the mother arrived, and on learning what had occurred in her absence, reproached her daughter with as much bitterness as if she had committed some heinous crime, and made such an onslaught on the poor painter, that, after vain efforts to appease the clamour, he tore up his drawing. ”

“ We want to see them as living men and women. It is the writer's problem to present them so vividly that we shall feel as if we had actually met them face to face.
The purpose of the personality sketch may be (1) to give interesting information concerning either prominent or little known persons, (2) to furnish readers inspiration that may bear fruit in their own lives, (3) to give practical guidance by showing how one individual has accomplished a certain thing. ”

“ Then if you should happen to call on him a few hours later you would find him at work on a sketch of something seen that morning, in which he seems to catch more of the true feeling and sentiment of the scene than would be possible in a sketch made on the spot through two or three hours of changing effect, and in his finished pictures he succeeds in preserving the strength and freshness that so charm you in his sketch.
Thoroughly original and extremely clever, he makes us feel in his pictures something of the intensity with which he himself is impressed by nature. ”

“ The lines of a sketch are seldom so full and continuous as those of an outline, being, like the shading or color, little more than indications or suggestions according to which a finished picture may be made; the artist's first representation of a sunset, the hues of which change so rapidly, must of necessity be a sketch. ”

“ And it was peculiarly interesting to me, because the argument touched upon problems in the actor’s art that I have always thought to be profoundly significant. How far may the personality of the performer intrude itself in the presentation of the chosen character, and to what extent are assumption and disguise part of the indispensable equipment of the artist? These are questions which every generation is apt to raise in regard to its popular favourites upon the stage. ”

“ The sketch, on the other hand, is a note of an effect merely, or of a general idea, and calls for only those qualities which most successfully show the central idea, which might sometime become a picture, or which suggests a scheme. A carefully worked-up sketch is a contradiction in terms, just as a careless study would be. ”

“ The touches by which the sketch is drawn, are few and rapidly made; but they faithfully portray the great features of the case, and present a true and living picture to the mind of every thoughtful man. ”

“ She plays an important part in the clever plot, which, although complicated, is perfectly clear. To sketch at any length even the principal of the numerous characters in the amusing comedy, would lead us much too far ”

“ Here again this return relates itself to the presentation of the tale as literature. For if the story has been presented so as to make the characters, the plot, and the setting stand out, the child naturally will select these to portray in a sketch. In his expression the child will represent what he chooses, but the teacher by selecting from among the results the one which is of most value, leads him to a better result in a following attempt. It is the teacher's selection among the results of activity that brings about development. ”

“ It was this sketch-book, which was as dilapidated then as you see it now. ”

“ Have we not here, then, the distinction between character-drawing and psychology? Character-drawing is the presentment of human nature in its commonly-recognized, understood, and accepted aspects; psychology is, as it were, the exploration of character, the bringing of hitherto unsurveyed tracts within the circle of our knowledge and comprehension. ”

“ He would sit and look at his victim with quiet, dreaming eyes, listen with sympathetic attention to whatever he might say, and then go away and write up a sketch that would reveal the inner life of his subject's mind in a manner that was sometimes startling to the man himself. ”

“ And yet he who undertakes the task of biographical delineation, should not be wholly without the scope of the influences which coloured the career he desires to sketch. The artist can hardly give the likeness of the face he never saw, nor the writer speak vividly of events which are merely known to him by tradition. ”