Lightness war

The phrase lightness war (or lightness race) refers to the art industry's tendency to paint, color and print art at progressively increasing levels of lightness to create an image that stands out from others. This phenomenon can be observed in many areas of the art industry, particularly in galleries and in pictures distributed as giclée and as Sofa-sized art. In the case of gallery prints, the war stems from artists' and distributors' desires to create pictures that seem as bright as possible or brighter than pictures from competing artists.^[1]

However, as the maximum brightness of a picture is dependent on its illumination, the overall lightness can only be increased by reducing the dynamic range. This is done by making the darker areas brighter while the brightest peak shades are either destroyed or severely diminished.

Example