Page:Landscape Painting by Birge Harrison.djvu/99

VALUES help we receive from the human imagination, which is ever ready to accept a mere hint and build upon it a whole world; to fill in all discrepancies; and, given a few scratches of pen or pencil, to construct therefrom a complete representation of nature. How peculiarly human is this mental attitude is proved by the fact that no animal is ever known to recognize the most realistic painting as anything more than simple paint and canvas.

Contenting ourselves, however, with our own small value-scale, as we needs must, and assuming it to be adequate, the most important thing to consider is the value-key of our picture. Assuming the whole scale of values from the deepest black to the purest white to be represented by the number 100, the question arises as to what proportion of this number we shall use in the particular [67]