Art Encyclopedia - Tonal Range

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Tonal Range
In art, tonal range is the range from light throug to dark of an object or of an entire painting. It includes the strongest darks and lights and all the intermediatery greys.

It is worth noting that most of the images we see depend for their effects on tonality. Owing to the technical process of the media, many reproduced coloured images also emphasise tonality.

Tone describes the gradadtions from light to dark observable in any solid object under the play of light and dark. In painting, and more espacially in drawing, it is this range of values independent of colour. Colour can have qualities of tone, that is, colours are dark or light.