Model (person)

“ She is by no means a model character. ”

“ If you are to be the model after which the boys and the girls—the most priceless product of the state—will both consciously and unconsciously fashion their lives, you must be in all things a worthy model. ”

“ She came back to me with tale upon tale, and it all might be or mightn't. I never met my pretty model in the world—she moved, it appeared, in exalted circles—and could only admire, in her wealth of illustration, the grandeur of her life and the freedom of her hand. ”

“ Never try to place a model in a pose which he can only hold by an unnatural strain. You will not get a satisfactory result from it. Study your model; see what poses he most naturally falls into, and then take advantage of one of these, and arrange your picture with reference to it.
Never attempt to represent a character in your picture by using a model of a different class or type from it; you will not be successful either in painting a lady from a model who is a peasant, nor in painting a peasant from a model who is a lady. ”

“ When the chosen model rightly inspired him—and without that model his invention was often vapid and inert—he could succeed in a degree which no other artist has matched or surpassed in registering not only the permanent facts of beauty in form and feature, but in arresting with equal felicity the most fleeting moments of tender or passionate expression. ”

“ I became infatuated with the idea that through some occult and mysterious influence I had had the opportunity of utilizing as a model the fairest of womankind. It was not by her own volition that she became my model. To hang her picture at the exhibition would be a crime. The most beautiful model in the whole world should not be gazed upon by the vulgar herd. ”

“ Permit us, in illustration of our subject, to place before you a sketch of an American woman of fashion as she is and as she might be—as she must be to accomplish the task we would appoint her. Examine with a careful eye “the counterfeit presentment” of these two widely differing characters, and choose the model on which you will form yourselves. And first, by a few strokes of this magic wand—the pen—we will conjure within the charmed circle of your vision, the woman of fashion as she is. ”

“ Nothing could be simpler. First you get your model;—she’s most probably stood for hundreds of other men, and knows more about the business than you do yourself; your master tells you how to pose her; you put her in a cabbage-patch or kitchen prepared for the purpose, like those in Chailly, for example; paint the background as carefully as you know how, and your picture’s made. It’s easier to learn how to paint than to find motives for yourself; so follow as closely as possible in other men’s steps ”

“ It is impossible to say in the presence of work of this kind how much has been contributed by the model, how much conferred by the artist; but that the artist’s share in the result is predominant is proved by the fact that nobody else has combined in the same fashion the portraiture of individual features with the most delicate suggestion of the emotion that moves them. ”

“ One finds one woman among a thousand whom one wants always. Therese was that woman whom one can not leave or betray.
She exclaimed, joyfully:
“I never shall be forsaken?”
She asked why he did not make her bust, since he thought her beautiful.
“Why? Because I am an ordinary sculptor, and I know it; which is not the faculty of an ordinary mind. But if you wish to think that I am a great artist, I will give you other reasons. To create a figure that will live, one must take the model like common material from which one will extract the beauty, press it, crush it, and obtain its essence. ”

“ If she asks if she is expected to be a model woman, the reply must be that the world does not much hanker after what—is called the “model woman.” It seems to be more a matter of tendency than anything else. Is she sagging towards Realism or rising towards Idealism? Is she content to be the woman that some of the novelists, and some of the painters also, say she is, or would she prefer to approach that ideal which all the world loves? ”

“ These models were all well-formed women, but they were commonplace. The hold Viola's form had upon the eye was that it was not commonplace. Its beauty was distinctive, peculiar, arresting. I was not a painter of types, but of exceptions. The common things of life are not interesting, nor do I think they are worthy subjects for Art to concern itself with. Something unusually beautiful, transcending the common type, is surely the best for the artist to try to perpetuate.
Friday came, the end of the week, and I was still without a model. ”

“ The model is used for all that is on the outside—movement, proportions, physical characteristics, beauty of form,—for all, in fact, except, however, just that turn of the head and look of the eye, that movement of the lips, dilation of the nostrils, and a thousand other signs and indications on the face which reveal the inner struggles of the soul. ”

“ You water the good impulses I have, you encourage all that is noble, elevating, and bettering, in me. I shall try to be like you, that is, so far as I can. You are my model, there is but one you. Many may copy you, none equal you. ”

“ I have been asked the question you put to me—tho' never asked so poetically and so pleasantly—I suppose a score of times: and I can only answer, with something of shame and contrition, that I undoubtedly had Wordsworth in my mind—but simply as 'a model'; you know, an artist takes one or two striking traits in the features of his 'model', and uses them to start his fancy on a flight which may end far enough from the good man or woman who happens to be 'sitting' for nose and eye. ”

“ After you have taken a figure, or any idea of a figure, from any of those great Painters, there is another operation still remaining, which I hold to be indispensably necessary—that is, never to neglect finishing from nature every part of the work. What is taken from a model, though the first idea may have been suggested by another, you have a just right to consider as your own property. ”

“ A face like that described, could not belong to an ungainly form. When nature designs beauty, it is rare that she does her work by halves. Unlike the artists of the anatomic school, she makes the model for herself—hence the perfect correspondence of its parts. ”

“ PASTEBOARD MODELS FOR A HOME DRAWING
CLASS
Study drawing at home and make your own models; form a class of several girls and work together; criticise one another’s drawings, and get a criticism from an artist whenever you can. Much may be accomplished in this way if you have the enthusiasm, perseverance, and will to carry it through. Starting with one object, complete in itself, a variety of forms may be evolved, and combinations can be made until an entirely new model is produced. ”

“ We teachers of art schools in engaging models have to take from human material as we find it. The best we find is seldom or never what we would prefer. If I, for instance, could have my choice, my students would never be allowed to work from a model who repelled the student or left the student indifferent. No students of mine, if I could have my way, should ever paint from a model that failed to call forth the finest feelings. Otherwise, how can your best emotions have full play in your work; and unless your best emotions enter into your work, what will your work be worth? ”

“ A secret of her appeal may lie in the fact that the artist is the father of the model. The little girl, crowned with a wildflower, posed with the pertness of a wayside blossom, her hands extended like pointed leaves, has a roguishness and playful grace that charm. ”

“ So, while the model is often a necessary appendage to the construction of a character, it is imperative that the spirit and sense spring from the artist, whose business is, not to reproduce the model, but to use it sparingly as he would a book of reference. ”

“ I heard of one young artist, whose circumstances did not permit his going to Europe, but who being nevertheless determined that his studies should, as nearly as possible, resemble those of the European academies, was about to commence drawing the human figure, for which purpose he had provided himself with a thin silk dress, in which to clothe his models, as no one of any station, he said, could be found who would submit to sit as a model without clothing. ”

“ For a picture, certainly. I'm speaking of her simply as a model. Could we not manage it? Get her once here, without her mother knowing it, or Broughton, or any one. I've got the subject,—Jael and Sisera, you know. ”

“ And yet, though the normal child's selection of a model is certainly very bold, it is strangely wise. For, when we begin to consider the human form we find that it is not only the measure of all things, but also that it is, as we said, a kind of store-house of originals. ”

“ There’s lots better opportunities, especially for a model. I have all the work I can do just now posing for the Standard, a theatrical paper.{237}
Now, there’s a fellow here who is going to get a bunch of girls and put us in living pictures. All one needs is the looks. Say, why don’t you come on and join me here? I’ve a little flat with a couple of other girls, and we need another to squeeze in and help pay the expenses. I’d prefer you to anyone I’ve seen here. Say, some of them are tough though!
I was awfully sorry to hear about the old Count dying. ”

“ Then begins attentive study, and sometimes a long research to be able to find a live model who approaches nearest the idea that you have formed to yourself, and that you have already in your mind in embryo, or have indicated in your sketch. From the moment, however, that you have found the model or models, you must remain alone with them and your idea; no extraneous images must come between you and your work. ”

“ The thing is to get most women to keep those they do make; but she used to pop in, as she called it, on the chance, letting me know that if I had a moment free she was quite at my service. When I hadn't the moment free she liked to stay to chatter, and she more than once expressed to me, I recollect, her theory that an artist really, for the time, could never see too much of his model. I must have shown her rather frankly that I understood her as meaning that a model could never see too much of her artist. ”

“ Does he ever seek a pose that is characteristic of the model, a pose that the model repeats oftener than any other?—Never. He advances the foot, puts the hand on the hip, etc., with a view to rendering his idea. ”

“ Violence has been committed with less cause! Occasionally someone picks a wrong model! That is why, at a signal from the hostess each one in turn turns over his picture and reads aloud the name of the artist as well as the name written on the portrait, and the artist is compelled to tell who his model was, regardless of what the picture looks like. ”

“ By way he sets the sail."—Selected.
How to Live a Holy Life
THE MODEL LIFE. In doing anything, it is always well to have a model by which to fashion our work. In fact, nothing is done without a pattern, either real or imaginary. The little boy making a toy has in in his mind a model by which he is framing his work. Likewise, the sculptor has in his mind a model, and as the "marble wastes, the image grows" into the likeness of the vision in his soul. ”

“ Without model, without imitation, without reminiscence, it is evolved entirely from our own polity and popular life. Look at what it celebrates and contains!—hardly to be enumerated without sometimes using the powerful, wondrous phrases of its author, so indissoluble are they with the things described. ”

“ The invitation was gladly accepted and I promptly began casting about for a suitable theme—a matter that often constitutes the most difficult part of the artist’s labors. The department of painting in which I was particularly adept was the study of the nude and I quite naturally resolved to produce something in the line of my308 favorite work. And then came the search for a model.
“Contrary to the popular notion, a satisfactory model is a very scarce commodity. The human form divine rarely stands the keen professional criticism of the eye artistic. ”

“ Ze model cannot get enough work to keep her, unless she is friend of some one or, maybe, she is complaisante to ze artist—yes. Only when she pose nude in ze schools—see—she get ze work, so long as she have ze belle figure. ”

“ I have observed that he who exercises little or no selection, and contents himself with the first model he sees, belongs to that class of conventional artists who allow themselves such an infinity of additions and subtractions, and corrections of the model, that generally only the remnants of nature are to be found in their works; while those who follow the opposite school copy the model minutely just as it is, and even with all its imperfections. ”

“ But the process of his learning rests ultimately on his own structure and function and not on others’ example. “Style must be founded upon models”; it is the rule set up by the pedant who knows nothing of what style means. For the style that is founded on a model is the negation of style.
The ardour and heroism of great achievement in style never grow less as the ages pass, but rather tend to grow more. ”

“ I console myself by remembering that a good model has a{264} pride in his endurance in a difficult pose that is as sustaining as honest and just pride always is. Nevertheless, when I look over these studies, and see the tall magician, peering, on tip-toe, over a screen, and the High-priest denouncing the violation of the sanctuary, and the unfortunate Arab, half rising from his couch to scan the horizon, I recognise that for these models, though Art was indisputably long, Time could hardly have been said to be fleeting. ”