Tone-Analysis — Value, Color, Intensity, Neutrality
125. In every tone we have to distinguish two elements, the quantity of light in it—what we call its value—and the quality of the light in it—its color; and the color, whatever it is,—Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, or Violet,—may be intense or neutral. By intensity I mean the quality of a color in its highest or in a very high degree. By the intensity of Red I mean Red when it is as red as possible. The mixture of Vermilion and Rose Madder, for example, gives us a Red of great intensity. That is about the strongest Red which we are able to produce with the pigment-materials which we use. Intensity must not be confounded with value nor value with intensity. By value I mean more or less light. By intensity I mean a great purity and brilliancy of color. Intensity stands in opposition to neutrality, in which no color can be distinguished. The more color we have in any tone the more intensity we have. The less the intensity the less color, and the absence of color means neutrality or grayness. Neutrality or grayness, though it is the negation of color, the zero of color, so to speak, must be classed as a color because upon analysis it proves to be a result of color combination or mixture. When I speak, as I shall from time to time, of the neutral as a color, it will be understood that I am speaking of a combination or mixture of colors in which no particular color can be distinguished. I speak of the neutral as a color just as I speak of zero as a number. We use zero as a number though it is no number, and counts for nothing.