ISFPs in short:

Retiring, quietly friendly, sensitive, kind, modest about their
abilities.  Shun disagreements, do not force their opinions or
values on others.  Usually do not care to lead but are often loyal
followers.  Often relaxed about getting things done, because they
enjoy the present moment and do not want to spoil it by undue haste
or exertion.

About 5% of the population.

Details about ISFPs:

Although all SPs (Sensuous Performers) are artisans in their
nature, they usually do not pursue their artistry with the same
devotion and adornment as the ISFP.  For whatever reason, the ISFP
seems more inclined to the "fine arts" than the other SPs; so when
an especially gifted composer, painter, or dancer shows up, he or
she, more frequently than not, possesses the character of an ISFP.
Beethoven, Toscanini, Rembrandt, and Nijinski, as shown by
typohistorical research, were clear-cut ISFPs.

But the ISFP temperament is very difficult to observe, even in the
great artists, and so ISFP is probably the most misunderstood of
all the types.

A major source of misunderstanding is the tendency of ISFPs not to
express themselves directly, but through action.  If they find a
medium of expression, some art form, then the character is
expressed in some degree in the medium.  If not, it simply doesn't
come out, and no one knows them, this social reticence making the
character all but invisible.

Of course, in those rare cases where remarkable skill is achieved,
such as in the virtuoso, ISFPs become celebrities, but their nature
is still far from visible.  Harpo Marx, a brilliant comedic actor,
may well be seen as a prototype, in his simultaneous celebrity and
mute invisibility.

On close observation, these relatively infrequent SPs (5 percent of
the population is ISFP, as compared to 15 percent ESFP) are just as
hedonistic and impulsive as the other SPs.  Here is no NF search
for significance, nor for that matter any fascination with science
(NT) or commerce (SJ).

ISFPs live Epicurean lives in the here and now, and as gracefully
as possible.  They do not plan and prepare.  Submergence in their
artistry is not preparation for something later; rather they
experience intensely, now.  ISFPs do not wait, for to wait is to
see their impulse wither and die; they want and value their
impulses and see them as the center of their lives.

Nor are ISFPs devoted or committed to artful play; rather they are
caught, as by a magnet or a whirlwind.  So then the long hours of
"practice" the virtuoso "gives" to artistry is not practice at all
and it is not given; it is doing and it is taken from the (willing)
ISFP by the performance itself.  The act is ISFP's master, not the
reverse, so we must abandon any notion of ISFPs as careful and
devoted planners and of dutiful preparation and rehearsal.  They
paint, or sing, or toot, or dance, or run, or skate, or pot, or
whatever, simply because must: the mountain is climbed 'because it
is there'.

Because the ISFP is always caught up, so to speak, in whatever
actions are underway, rather than practicing toward some distant
goal, there is no question of the ISFP noticing fatigue, pain, or
danger.  They are usually quite oblivious to the accompaniments of
many of their favorite activities.  It is not that ISFPs are inured
to them as much as it is that, wholly engaged by an action, they
simply do not notice them.  In this ISFP is similar to other SPs
and different from all other types.

ISFP, like other SPs, has a special kind of intelligence.  Please
recall that intelligence is defined in this book as doing things
well under varying circumstances.  This particular category of
intelligence might be called "artisan concretized."  Such talent
differs from that possessed by NFs, NTs, and SJs (granting of
course, that they too have their own unique and inherent
abilities).  This artisan concretization somehow keeps the ISFP
more closely in touch with the very real.

While the ISTP is attuned to the tool, so to speak, the ISFP is
attuned to color, line, texture, shading - touch, motion, seeing,
and hearing in harmony.  The senses of the ISFP seem more keenly
tuned than those of others.  Rembrandt could almost taste colors so
great was his discrimination.  Toscanini could hear a single false
note in the most complex operatic-orchestral score, and Hemingway's
words tasted and smelled and felt the waves.  This extreme
concreteness and specificity seems to come naturally to the ISFP
and is embedded "in the warp and woof of the man's make."

The social side of the ISFP character must not be eclipsed by the
more spectacular performances some of this group are capable of.
The ISFP has to be the kindest of all the types with no near
competitors.  This kindness is unconditional.  Here is sympathy, of
which we are all capable, carried to its most extreme form.  The
ISFP is especially sensitive to the pain and suffering of others
and, like St.  Francis of Assisi, with sympathetic impulsivity
gives freely to the sufferer.

ISFP is usually not interested in developing facility in speaking,
writing, or conversation.  Speech, after all, is abstract, not
concrete, ISFPs preferring to have their fingers on the pulse of
life.  That pulse must be felt - by touch, in the muscles, in the
eyes, in the ears.

This insistence on the senses being so closely attuned to reality
can, in some ISFPs, occasion a breach with language, and language
becomes a barrier to smooth interpersonal relations.  So ISFPs are
sometimes seen by others as reserved and private, tending to give
up rather easily in their attempts to express themselves verbally.

But this reluctant speech is not so much a lack of ability as it is
disinterest.  Hemingway broke that barrier, a splendid instance of
an ISFP entering the world of words and making apparent
inarticulateness into art, changing the face of 20th Century
literature.

The number of great artisans who, upon investigation, were found
clearly to have been ISFPs, is truly awesome.  The other SPs seem
to have contributed far fewer masters to the fine arts.  Gaugin and
Puccini, both ESTPs, were in this sense exceptional.  Music and the
dance seems almost the province of ISFP, and surely investigation
will show many of the great athletes come from this group.

Of course, all ISFPs have not been and need not be artisans in the
narrow sense of the word.  Art, broadly conceived, is any action
the next move of which is a free variable, and it is art thus
conceived that is the forte of SPs in general and the ISFP in
particular.

Thus ISFPs have a lot of leeway in choice of occupation, especially
if they do not drop out of school early (most SPs do, since the
school offers little that is of interest to them or that challenges
their special brand of intelligence).  It is a sad day indeed when
the ISFP chooses work wherein the operations are fixed by rule or
necessity and not free.  To be happy and productive the ISFP must
choose variable actions and be rewarded for doing them.

Finally, in many ISFPs may be found an instinctive longing for the
natural, the pastoral, the bucolic.  They are quite at home in the
wilds, and nature seems to welcome them.  Some have a remarkable
way with animals, even wild animals, almost as if there were a bond
of mutual sympathy and trust.  In some instances a similar bond may
be seen between the ISFP and young children, instant and unstudied.

Perhaps the most important thing to understand about ISFPs is that
they are SPs, with much in common with ESFPs especially, often
resembling ISTPs, and even sharing some traits with the seemingly
very different ESTP.

To summarize this commonality with other SPs, ISFPs may be seen as
optimistic and cheerful; egalitarian, fraternal, and insubordinate;
tending to ward off obligation, duty, confinement, and fetters; a
lover of freedom, easily bored, wanting excitement, risk, chance,
and tests of luck; uncomplicated in motivation, trusting,
receptive, generous, and in every sense of the word a spender
rather than a saver.

ISFPs are misunderstood not only because they are retiring,
reserved, and even self-effacing, but because the Jungians have
cast them as "introverted feeling types," and therefore very much
like the INFPs.  Watch a few thoroughgoing ISFPs and you'll find
they have very little in common with INFPs.  Other types are
reminded to guard against the natural tendency to project their own
traits of character onto the silent ISFP.