James Ward occupies the comfortable middle of the value scale, avoiding both extremes to hold the eye in a sustained middle grey. The palette achieves thermal balance - reds and blues, ochres and greens, each holding the other in check. Chroma hovers near zero; colour declares itself through subtle shifts in hue rather than outright saturation. At 5.8%, #4C281D carries the palette's sharpest chromatic charge: an accent that earns its place precisely because it is withheld. A value spread of 59 units gives the palette both depth and air - shadows are genuinely dark, lights genuinely light. This is palette 9 of James Ward's sequence - a single chapter in a chromatic story told across many works.