Values for Pictures Worth a Thousand Words

The Frank J. Reilly Lessons/Lectures

In book form the program that trained this century’s top illustrators in half the time DaVinci or Michelangelo spent as apprentices.

Had the creator of the program to be described in this book lived to write it himself, he would undoubtedly have dedicated it to the memory of Albert Munsell. In 1915, Munsell had created a system of Color Notation he had hoped would serve artist as an internationally accepted scale of notes had served musicians.

In an age when standardization in manufacturing was becoming more prevalent, and artists would profit by knowing how to specifically identify and reproduce a color, Munsell had devised a system whereby colors (HUES) could be isolated by where they fit upon a graded scale from White,(#10) to Black, (#0) known as VALUE .

By the early 1930’S, by using the MUNSELL VALUES as an analytical key, with the number of VALUES expanded to NINE, Mr. Frank J. Reilly had determined the VALUE RANGES which isolated successfully painted “illusions” of specific seasons, times of day, and positions of, and intensities of Illumination sources.

Since VALUES represent 80% of a painting’s effectiveness, and most of the illustrations used early in this century were in black and white, a teaching artist who could adequately prepare students to compete with the instructor himself within about four years would have students recommended to his classes by those he had trained, and by other successful illustrators. From the early 1930’s three classes daily were heavily attended, with the majority of those in the evening classes either having been recommended by artists, or by those already employed in the “Art” field who had attended public lectures by Mr. Reilly and had realized that within five minutes he offered more practical information that was offered in the time it took to earn both the Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in University Art programs.

By the time Mr. Reilly had been appointed Art Commissioner of NYC in 1961, his teaching program had enjoyed some 30 years of success at the Art Students League of N.Y. At this point, because harassment by a bitter clique among the 40 odd other instructors, who had felt that as “FINE” artists represented by Madison Ave. galleries they were superior to “Illustrators”, and who resented seeing fewer students enrolled in their own classes, provoked Mr. Reilly to start his own school. In early January of 1967 Mr. Reilly was buried after an undiagnosed brain tumor took his life.

Throughout the world, Munsell’s system has been the standard of National Bureaus of Standards, and in every conceivable area of manufacturing and science. The acceptance of the HUE, VALUE, and CHROMA terms in Art Schools has grown, but the concept is never understood, nor taught after being mentioned briefly, along with the names of other’s systems; Ostwald; Faber-Birren, and Helmholtz’s and the 3 PRIMARY system which cannot be used to determine such things as Hue changes due to shifts in the Illumination’s colors which alter the hues of objects, and the apparent hue changes in Cast Shadows…as can be done with the MUNSELL COLOR “Wheel’s“ TEN BASIC HUES! This text offers a training program, proven by more than HALF A CENTURY, and based upon observations of Nature!