lorist's
method. It is the rule of thumb method of a false technique and a
vicious color sense. True tone is not something put onto the picture
after it is painted. It is an inherent part of its color conception,
and is worked into it while the picture is being painted, and grows to
perfection with the growth of the picture. It is of the very essence
of the picture. It is the dominant balance of color qualities; the
result of a perfect appreciation of the value of every color spot
which goes to the expression of the artist's thought.

In one sense it is the same as _atmosphere_ in that the tonality of
the picture is the atmosphere which pervades it. It may perhaps be
best described by saying that it is that combination of color which
gives to the picture the effect of every object and part in it having
been seen under the same conditions of atmosphere; having been seen at
the same time, with the same modification, and with the same degree
and quality of light vibration. Tone is _color value_ as distinguished
from value as degree of power as light and shade; and in this is the
perfection of subtlety of color feeling.

=Tone Painters and Colorists.=--Some painters have been called "tone
painters," while others have been called "colorists;" not that tone
painters are not colorists, but that there is a difference. It is a
difference of aim, a difference of desire. Those painters who are
usually called colorists, like Titian and Rubens, are in love with the
richness and power of the color gamut. They are full of the splendor
of color. They paint in full key, however balanced the canvas. Each
note of color tells for its full power. Their stop is the open
diapason, and their harmony is the harmony of large intervals and full
chords.

The tone painter deals with close intervals. He is in love with subtle
harmonies. What he loves is the essence of the color quality, and not
its splendor. With the closest range he can give all possible
half-tones and shades and modulations of color, yet never exceed the
gray note perhaps; never once go to the full extent of his
palette-power.

The utmost delicacy of perception and feeling, and the most perfect
command of materials and of values, are necessary to such a painter.
Above all, is he the "painter's painter," for the infinite subtlety
and the exquisiteness of power are his. And yet this is the thing
least appreciated by the lay mind, the most difficult to encompass,
and requiring