In well-timed contrast to climate activists who claim to defend nature by defacing art, the American Tonalist Society is presenting a painting exhibition in which reverence for nature is defended in limitless — and lovely — shades and majestic glory. Rosy-fingered dawn, as well as purple-edged marshes, sun-dappled creeks, and assorted scenes that expand the tradition of tonalism are on view at the Salmagundi Club through May 7 in “Shades of Gray: II.”

Founded in 2016, the American Tonalist Society is devoted to a style of painting defined in the 1800s as primarily landscape and reverential toward nature, with a spiritual gloss. Painters working in this style create a mood, rather than a story, through the tonal quality of a chosen color. Animals are rare. People, even rarer. In the 67 paintings of this exhibit, the only human form I spotted was in a painting of a statue presiding over a gray-green Paris courtyard in “The Old Master.”