Page:Landscape Painting by Birge Harrison.djvu/97

 V

VALUES late years the English term "values" has entirely replaced the Italian "chiaroscuro" by which painters were long wont to describe the light and shade of a picture as apart from its color. The change is certainly a good one.

Values are a pure convention, because they are built upon the assumption that nature is monochromatic. They are however, a most important convention—one that is practically indispensable to a painter—for it is upon sound values that pictures depend for their solidity and their convincing power. Good painting, after all, is a matter of analysis and synthesis; and we painters are [65]