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Notan

Dark and light, before colour.

The people behind nōtan

Nōtan is a Japanese word, but in art lessons it is an idea from the United States: dark and light shapes balanced against each other. Ernest Fenollosa is credited with bringing the idea to the United States; then Arthur Wesley Dow spread it in an 1893 article and in his book Composition (1899).

Arthur Wesley Dow, Composition: Understanding Line, Notan and Color (1899).