v a l u e

VALUE

A value scale is a representation of value progressive value transitions, from pure white to pure black.

Achromatic value is value absent of color, purely black and white

Charles Sheeler, The Open Door

Value contrast: the relationship between areas of dark and light. How much of the value scale do we see here? Does the placement of the darks and lights allow for gradual transitions or jarring juxtapositions of value?

Chromatic value Color and value are linked, and pure colors have inherent values. For example, yellow is near the high end of the value scale, purple is low in value.

Anonymous, The Quilting Party

Value pattern: the distribution of values across an image

When this painting is desaturated, it is easier to see the pattern of dark, light and midtone values.

Morandi, untitledWhat is the value pattern here? Where are the darks and lights concentrated?

A piece whose values are concentrated on the light end of the value scale is HIGH KEY, or high in value.

Agnes Martin, Friendship

Mary Cassatt, Sewing

Odilon Redon, Fear

Images concentrated near the dark end of the value scale are LOW KEY, low in value.

Goya, Saturn Eating his Children

Artemesia Gentileschi, Judith and Holofernes

Images that use a range of high and low values, but few midtones are “HIGH CONTRAST”, especially if the highs and lows are placed directly next to each other, to accentuate the contrast.

Still from Persepolis

Blade Runner Comic

Chiaroscuro is created by contrasting areas of light and dark. In this image, there are several distinct lighting areas: a highlight, quartertone, midtone, form shadow, reflected light, and cast shadow. By contrasting the light areas with dark, we see an illusion of a sphere curving in space, and light moving across the sphere.

In this Rembrandt self-portrait, we see a similar arrangement of highlights, midtones, form shadows, and reflected light.

Francisco de Zurbaran, Bodegon

Rembrandt, Dinner at Emmaus

Carravaggio, The Calling

Eakins

Giorgio Morandi, Composition

Hatch-marking is a shading technique where small parallel lines are grouped together to create shifts in values. The proximity of the lines allows us to read sections as lighter or darker.

Albrecht Durer, Adam and Eve

Albrecht Durer, Old Man

Michelangelo, Figure study

Modeling (shading) forms creates an illusion of three-dimensionality.

Goya, The Giant

Alfred Bierstadt, Merced River

Atmospheric perspective: A technique where shifts in value create an illusion of space. Forms in the foreground are larger, darker, and higher in contrast. In the distance the value gets lighter and has less contrast.

Caspar David Friedrich, View Above the Sea

Ansel Adams

Ansel Adams