general fact, or a scheme of general arbitrary
arrangement. Any one piece of arbitrary arrangement in this connection
must be backed up by other pieces of arbitrary arrangement, or else
there must be no arbitrary arrangement at all. The modern painter
accepts the former; and the importance of "values" is the result.

=Absolute and Relative Values.=--We may speak of values as absolute or
relative. This relates to the key or pitch of a painting. It is the
contribution to the art of painting which was made by the French
painter, Manet. You may paint a picture in the same pitch as nature,
or you may transpose it to a higher or a lower pitch.

The relations of the different values of the picture will hold the
same relation to each other as the values of nature do to each other.
But the actual pitch of each, the relation of each to an absolute
light or an absolute dark, will be higher or lower than in nature.
This would be relative values.

Or the pitch, relation to absolute light and dark, of each value may
be the same, value for value, as in nature. This would be absolute
values.

The attempt at absolute values was not made at all before Manet's
time. A landscape was frankly painted down, or darker, from the pitch
of nature, and an interior as frankly painted up, or lighter. In both
cases the values had to be condensed,--telescoped, so to
speak,--because pigment would not express the highest light nor the
lowest dark in nature; and to have the same number of gradations
between the highest and lowest notes in the picture, the amount of
difference between each value had to be diminished--but _relatively_
they were the same. The degree of variation from the actual was the
same all through.

With absolute values the painter aims at giving the _just note_,--the
exact equivalent in value that he finds in nature. He tries to paint
up to out-door light or paint down to in-door light.

=Close Values.=--This naturally calls for a fine distinction of
tones--the utmost subtlety of perception of values. To paint a picture
in which the highest light may not be white nor the lowest dark black,
and yet give a great range and variety to the values all through the
picture, the values must be _close_; must be studied so closely as to
take cognizance of the slightest possible distinction, and to justly
express it. This sort of thing was not thought of by the older
painters. It is the distinguishing characteristic of modern painting.
I