Sketch, traditionally a rough drawing or painting in which an artist notes down his preliminary ideas for a work that will eventually be realized with greater precision and detail. The term also applies to brief creative pieces that per se may have artistic merit.
In a traditional sketch, the emphasis usually is laid on the general design and composition of the work and on overall feeling. Such a sketch is often intended for the artist’s own guidance; but sometimes, in the context of a bottega (studio-shop) type of production, in which an artist would employ many assistants, sketches were made by the master for works to be completed by others. There are three main types of functional sketches. The first—sometimes known as a croquis—is intended to remind the artist of some scene or event he has seen and wishes to record in a more permanent form. The second—a pochade—is one in which he records, usually in colour, the atmospheric effects and general impressions of a landscape. The third type is related to portraiture and notes the look on a face, the turn of a head, or other physical characteristics of a prospective sitter.
From the 18th century, however, sketch came to take on a new meaning, which has almost come to supersede the traditional one. The emphasis on freshness and spontaneity, which was an integral part of the Romantic attitude, the fact that there was a great increase in the number of amateur artists, and the growing appreciation of nature, accompanied by an expansion of facilities for travel, transformed the sketch into something regarded as an end in itself—a slight and unpretentious picture, in some simple medium (pen and ink, pencil, wash, or watercolour) recording a visual experience. This led to a revaluation of sketches that had originally been created for other works. Contemporary taste, for instance, tends to value John Constable’s sketches as highly as his finished works.