Tone Relations in Painting [4th printing 1928. Reprint 2014 ed.] 9780674368972, 9780674368965

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TONE RELATIONS IN PAINTING BY A R T H U R P O P E PROFESSOR HARVARD

OF F I N E

ARTS

UNIVERSITY

CAMBRIDGE H A R V A R D U N I V E R S I T Y PRESS 1928

COPYRIGHT, 1922 BY HARVARD UNIVERSITY P R E S S

Fourth

Printing

PRINTED AT THE HARVARD UNIVERSITY P R E S S CAMBRIDGE, M A S S . , U . S . A .

PREFACE

T

HIS pamphlet, a large portion of which in typewritten form has been in use for several years, has been written primarily for the needs of the students in the courses in drawing and painting in Harvard University and Radcliffe College; but as an elementary statement of the theory of tone relations, containing also a certain amount of new contribution to the subject, it may be of use to others. In the first two chapters I have tried to explain clearly and rather fully the possible classifications which may be made of the different factors that enter into visual tone, or what is in ordinary speech usually referred to simply as color. In the later chapters I have covered more briefly the principal possibilities in the application of these classifications to design and representation, in order to make as complete as possible an outline of the whole subject of tone relations. In considerable part the pamphlet makes no claim to originality. Dr. Ross, in his epoch-making books,1 has discussed the subject of tone relations and the use of scaled palettes at length. As these books have in some cases, however, proved rather difficult reading for the beginner, I have attempted to explain certain elementary facts which they have taken more or less for granted — especially the relation of the terminology used by Dr. Ross to other terminologies, that of Dr. Ross's classification to other possible classifications, and the bearing of the different kinds of color mixture on these. There are some who still believe that it is unnecessary and even unwise for the painter, to say nothing of the general public, to know anything definite about the materials of the craft or the terms of the language which the painter employs. But if one compares the quality of the surface of even an average painting, dating from the XVIII century or before that time, with that of even the best paintings of the X I X or the XX century, it will be seen that 1 Denman W. Ross: A Theory of Pure Design; On Drawing and Painting; The Painter's Palette. Houghton, Mifflin