Tonalist Painting?

[Karin Wells]

I have fallen in love with the landscape work of George Inness, an American Tonalist painter (see work below). I have recently begun to seriously study landscape when I need a break from portraiture.

Does anyone know about this school of painting, who was in it and the methods they used?

Did any of them ever paint portraits in this manner?

[Michael Georges]

Karin,

My understanding of tonalist painting is that you paint your work from a value perspective, which is what I do. So I believe that most work of this type is created by first painting a monochromatic undertone and then glazing and painting color opaquely. The thing about this type of painting is that you match the values of your color to the values of your undertones. This means that if you put down a value 7 undertone in a cheek, you put a value 7 flesh tone over it. The tonal undertone becomes a bit like a roadmap.

You have done the same thing when you created your grisaille paintings - you would just need to take it to the next step and bring it into color.

They did amazing things when they got the value structure correct!

[Khaimraj Seepersad]

Courtesy a site I was semi pointed to: TONE = colour + black + white.

Khaimraj

[Cynthia Daniel]

Karin,

Take a look at this page at AskArt.com: http://www.askart.com/Interest/TopHudson_A.asp

[Chris Saper]

I have always thought that the bookends, "tonalist" and "colorist" are defined by the final appearance of the work, rather than the process. In between the two lies a smooth continuum. By example, I would generally describe the work of painters like Richard Schmid and Jeremy Lipking as tonal in nature. Conversely, the work of painters like Harley Brown or Doug Dawson are, to me, colorist in nature. As an aside, though, I also think that colorists can not be successful unless they are also accomplished tonalists.

[Timothy C. Tyler]

Ole Inness did lots and lots of glazing, like Maxfield Parrish. He also did it wisely and well so that much of his work is still in good shape. I have issues (boy do I) but I have issues with the term tone and thereby tonalist. I'm thinking of early French and English landscapes and Americans that studied there like John Twatchman in his early days as tonal paintings. These are very flat and moody w/o lots of detail amd I wish I had one painting in particular to post.

I think Inness was Turner and Church influenced and took this further with tons of colored varnish glazing. When you stare closely at the work in person you can see the layers glazed over well painted colorful "underpainting".

[Denise Hall]

Karin,

I love the tonalists -- and one of my most favorites is Thomas Dewing. You can see a large work by him (a tryptich), plus several others, in the permanent collection at the Freer Gallery at the Smithsonian (beside the castle and the Sackler) in Washington, DC.

You have probably already seen them. I just spent a few days there at the end of June. Seeing his work in person is quite an experience.

Also, The Peacock Room is there (Whistler).

[Peggy Baumgaertner]

Just a quick aside. I consider myself a tonalist who uses color. I was studying with one of the great tonalists, Cedric Egeli, when he became a colorist, and followed him to the Cape School, where I studied the colorist method for six summers. Cedric would now very definitely be considered a colorist, but I have found myself pitching back to the tonalist path, by way of my study over the last five years of the 19th Century Russians and the 16th century Flemish painters.

I do, however, use a colorist palette, I apply the paint to the canvas like a colorist, I build up the paint, manipulate the paint, make use of the refractive quality of light like a colorist, I paint a mud head like a colorist, and make plane changes with color changes instead of value changes.

But bottom line, I am a tonalist. Value is more important to me than color. My definition of a tonalist is his being a valueist. Richard Whitney spoke admiringly of the oh so subtle value changes in Ivan Kramskoi's work. Of how Kramskoi could turn an edge in a whisper....(ahhhh)

Having studied at great length both disciplines, I can tell you that it is not possible to define either in a sentence, because both have intricate and extensive theories and philosophies.

Henry Hensche used to say that if you got the color right, with the right value, the right shape, and in the right place, you didn't need to draw. James I. (a tonalist artist) once said that it didn't matter if you get the color wrong, as long as the value was correct. Many a classical realist will tell you that the drawing is everything. Should we call them line-ists?

I've studied all three, and thankfully, no one is making me sign a pact to use only one discipline.

Peggy

[Timothy C. Tyler]

I paint from life and have the same light on my subject as is on the painting. I then try to match every aspect of the subject to the painting. I see no reason to select or favor any aspect (tone, value, color) of what I observe. In my experience, when one's work has too much chroma or if your values are off they call you a colorist. If you are afraid of color and bashfully ignore those observable delicate chroma then they call you a value painter or a tonalist. (I have always thought Sargent was called a tonalist for no good reason since I've always thought his color was spot on.) Light unifies a sitter or subject. Its effect, accurately painted, thus unifies your artwork. Correct color is not garish color.

Crude brushwork does not make you an expressionist. My favorite new quote is, "Just because no one understands you, doesn't mean you're an artist."