Charles Dickens te midden van figuren uit David Copperfield 1852

This drawing by Johannes Christiaan d'Arnaud Gerkens presents Charles Dickens amidst characters from *David Copperfield*, rendered in delicate lines and subtle gradations of tone. The composition, a cluster of portraits, might evoke a sense of literary intimacy, an invitation into the imaginative world of Dickens’s novel. Consider the structure of the composition, where individual portraits are connected through careful arrangement and tonal consistency. The faces vary in emotional expression, yet they are unified through shared tonality and similar techniques of hatching. This invites us to explore how the artist has used the formal elements of line and tone to evoke a cohesive representation of complex relationships between characters. The drawing functions not just as an illustration but as a semiotic exercise, where each face becomes a signifier of a character's traits and role within Dickens' narrative. Through these formal choices, the artwork prompts us to consider how it challenges traditional portraiture. It acknowledges how characters are constructed and interpreted through narrative, and how we continuously renegotiate meaning through form.