Value in Art: Understanding the Use of Value in Art

Rather than indicating the monetary worth of fine art on the art market, the value of art refers to the lightness or darkness of a color. Every color has a value between white and black, and every shade can be arranged on a gradient value scale. The values of a color are often visualized in a gradient, which displays a series of variations on one hue, arranged from the lightest to the darkest. The scale begins at the lightest possible value (white, which has the lightest value) and ends with the darkest value (black, which has the darkest value); between these two extremes of the scale are shades of grey that gradually become darker.

Artists use the various values of color to create the illusion of mass and volume in their work. When an artist paints a still life of a green apple, they will use at least three values of green (a pale tone, a mid-tone, and a dark tone) to indicate the three-dimensionality of the apple. The overall appearance of the apple will be the mid-tone shade of green, but the two contrasting tones indicate the highlight and shadow that result from a light source reflecting on the fruit. Artists include a range of values in their works of art in order to structure their compositions.

Colors of different value in art interact with each other to create different effects that can change the mood or depth of your painting. Here are some types of value in art.

• High key: High key colors contain the most white and are on the palest end of the gradient scale.
• Low key: Low key colors contain the most black, and are on the darker end of the gradient scale.
• High contrast: When two colors have opposite values, such as very dark and very light blue, they are considered high contrast.
• Low contrast: When two colors have values that are only slightly different from one another, they are considered low contrast.

Here are three examples of how artists have used value in their paintings.

1. 1. Homage to the Square: Wondering by Josef Albers (1964): Albers taught color theory and painting in the Bauhaus school of art. His series Homage to the Square had a number of variations, each of which featured overlapping squares of different colors. Homage to the Square: Wondering showed the progression of one hue of yellow, progressing through four different values.
2. 2. With My Back to the World by Agnes Martin (1997): Painter Agnes Martin often created abstract paintings that featured gradations of color that had very similar values. My Back to the World is a series of six contemporary art paintings containing a series of colored lines that may appear identical, but on closer inspection, the value of the colors shifts very slightly in the paintings.
3. 3. Wall Drawing #1146 by Sol LeWitt (2005): Known for his colorful wall drawings, Sol Lewitt played with a light-to-dark gradation technique for this wall drawing of a grayscale sphere, which showcases the volume of the subject in a simple value gradient of white to black.

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