A theory of pure design

by Denman Waldo Ross

DEFINITION OF THE WORD TONE

124. In producing tones we use, necessarily, certain pigment-materials and mixtures of these materials. The effect of light produced by any particular material or mixture we call its tone. Though I have been using the word Tone I have not yet defined its meaning. I will now do that.

TONE-ANALYSIS,—VALUE, COLOR,
INTENSITY, NEUTRALITY

125. In every tone we have to distinguish two elements, the quantity of light in it—what we call its value—and the quality of the light in it—its color; and the color, whatever it is,—Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, or Violet,—may be intense or neutral. By intensity I mean the quality of a color in its highest or in a very high degree. By the intensity of Red I mean Red when it is as red as possible. The mixture of Vermilion and Rose Madder, for example, gives us a Red of great intensity. That is about the strongest Red which we are able to produce with the pigment-materials which we use. Intensity must not be confounded with value nor value with intensity. By value I mean more or less light. By intensity I mean a great purity and brilliancy of color. Intensity stands in opposition to neutrality, in which no color can be distinguished. The more color we have in any tone the more intensity we have. The less the intensity the less color, and the absence of color means neutrality or grayness. Neutrality or grayness, though it is the negation of color, the zero of color, so to speak, must be classed as a color because upon analysis it proves to be a result of color combination or mixture. When I speak, as I shall from time to time, of the neutral as a color, it will be understood that I am speaking of a combination or mixture of colors in which no particular color can be distinguished. I speak of the neutral as a color just as I speak of zero as a number. We use zero as a number though it is no number, and counts for nothing.

STUDY OF TONES AND
TONE-RELATIONS

126. The study of tones and tone-relations means the study of pigment-materials and their effects, to find out what quantities of light we can produce, what qualities of color, what intensities of color, what neutralizations. That is the problem of tones and tone-relations. We cannot know much about tones and tone-relations until we have had experience in the use of pigment-materials. We must be able to distinguish tones, however slight the differences of value or of color or of color-intensity, and we must be able to produce tones according to our discriminations: this with exact precision. In order to think in tone-relations we must have definite ideas of tone and of tone-relations, in the form of visual images. In order to express our ideas we must be able to paint. We must have practice in painting and a great deal of it. I propose to describe this practice in tones and tone-relations: what it ought to be, what forms it should take.