On Values and Color

I once heard my professor saying that most of the colors in nature contain a certain amount of gray in life. today when I was studying a yellowed page of a drawing by Sargent I realized what he meant, hen he mentioned that theres only pure white in the reflection of a metal and that was it, the whitest yellow is still gray in black and white, and the studies of bouguereau if you try and draw some of this paintings you will realize how much of an emphasis he put in drawing and values they might even come second from color, Richard Schmid mentioned how some artists chose one of two things to emphasize when creating their art for Monet was color and light over sharpness of figure or shape in comparison with Zorn and Sargent (figure and shape over color) in the case of Bouguereau it would be shape and Value, Not all artists have it all because sight is limited and nobody can master all things but once in a while we see can see paintings where some of this elements go beyond a perfect harmony and that is what I think what we call a masterpiece.