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Emerald Coast
Gagik Ghazanchyan
Painting - 80 x 85 x 2 cm Painting - 31.5 x 33.5 x 0.8 inch
$3,915 $3,523
Mémoire de JingDeZhen
Feng Hatat
Photography - 32 x 48 x 1 cm Photography - 12.6 x 18.9 x 0.4 inch
$671
Mémoire de JingDeZhen
Feng Hatat
Photography - 32 x 48 x 1 cm Photography - 12.6 x 18.9 x 0.4 inch
$671
Une nuit pluvieuse
Feng Hatat
Photography - 60 x 40 x 2 cm Photography - 23.6 x 15.7 x 0.8 inch
$671
I'll Be Back Soon
Claudia Chang
Painting - 72.5 x 60.5 x 3 cm Painting - 28.5 x 23.8 x 1.2 inch
$4,026
Duality
Alexandre de Poplavsky
Painting - 150 x 100 x 3.5 cm Painting - 59.1 x 39.4 x 1.4 inch
$31,317
Crock de toi royal - ultra white
Ninu
Sculpture - 30 x 30 x 17 cm Sculpture - 11.8 x 11.8 x 6.7 inch
$5,033
Epouvantail_Art-O-Middle-02
Art-O
Sculpture - 98 x 43 x 48 cm Sculpture - 38.6 x 16.9 x 18.9 inch
$1,230
Mémoire de JingDeZhen
Feng Hatat
Photography - 32 x 48 x 1 cm Photography - 12.6 x 18.9 x 0.4 inch
$559
Pietà
François-Xavier de Boissoudy
Painting - 125 x 100 x 4 cm Painting - 49.2 x 39.4 x 1.6 inch
$72,700
Ombre et lumière #5
Feng Hatat
Photography - 48 x 32 x 1 cm Photography - 18.9 x 12.6 x 0.4 inch
$671
Le phare et les mystères
Carole Framezelle - Acmiya
Painting - 100 x 100 x 2 cm Painting - 39.4 x 39.4 x 0.8 inch
$4,921
Atelier de porcelaine I
Feng Hatat
Photography - 60 x 90 x 2 cm Photography - 23.6 x 35.4 x 0.8 inch
$671
Fours traditionnel à bois pour le porcelaine
Feng Hatat
Photography - 60 x 90 x 2 cm Photography - 23.6 x 35.4 x 0.8 inch
$559
Passages #812
Nagsoul
Fine Art Drawings - 60 x 100 x 3 cm Fine Art Drawings - 23.6 x 39.4 x 1.2 inch
$1,678
Ombre et lumière III
Feng Hatat
Photography - 48 x 32 x 1 cm Photography - 18.9 x 12.6 x 0.4 inch
$559
Ombre et lumière 7
Feng Hatat
Photography - 70 x 50 x 2 cm Photography - 27.6 x 19.7 x 0.8 inch
$671
Mémoire de JingDeZhen
Feng Hatat
Photography - 32 x 48 x 1 cm Photography - 12.6 x 18.9 x 0.4 inch
$671
Ombre et lumière I
Feng Hatat
Photography - 48 x 32 x 1 cm Photography - 18.9 x 12.6 x 0.4 inch
$559
Ombre et lumière II
Feng Hatat
Photography - 48 x 32 x 1 cm Photography - 18.9 x 12.6 x 0.4 inch
$559
Foot Musik
Roberto Matta
Fine Art Drawings - 76 x 78 cm Fine Art Drawings - 29.9 x 30.7 inch
$10,066
The Swan Lake of Love
Yasna Godovanik
Painting - 100 x 70 x 2 cm Painting - 39.4 x 27.6 x 0.8 inch
$1,398 $853
Exploflora Series No.30
Sumit Mehndiratta
Painting - 152 x 304 x 3 cm Painting - 59.8 x 119.7 x 1.2 inch
$3,355
Revenir
François-Xavier de Boissoudy
Painting - 57 x 42 x 3 cm Painting - 22.4 x 16.5 x 1.2 inch
$1,342
Fréquence d'amour
Christelle Ferron (Nasca)
Painting - 97 x 146 x 4 cm Painting - 38.2 x 57.5 x 1.6 inch
$3,669
Alpilles
Agnès Tiollier
Fine Art Drawings - 50 x 70 x 0.18 cm Fine Art Drawings - 19.7 x 27.6 x 0.1 inch
$895
Flat Layer Multi-Color
Mattia Novello
Painting - 111.8 x 111.8 x 5.1 cm Painting - 44 x 44 x 2 inch
$7,500
La fraîcheur du monde
Jean-Pierre Petit
Painting - 60 x 60 x 2 cm Painting - 23.6 x 23.6 x 0.8 inch
$671
Horizon Carbone (2)
Christophe Ruiz
Painting - 80 x 60 x 2 cm Painting - 31.5 x 23.6 x 0.8 inch
$1,007 $906
Sous-bois
François-Xavier de Boissoudy
Painting - 125 x 125 x 4 cm Painting - 49.2 x 49.2 x 1.6 inch
$8,388
White
In physics, white is the sum of all the colours. To the human eye, white appears to be the total absence of colour. Amongst artists, white and its many uses in art are continuously evolving and challenging those who would embrace them. Is white, then, a non-colour, or an enhancer of colours? Intangible or material? Absence or excess?
Since Antiquity, white has been appreciated for its symbolic value. In Ancient Greece, where they would paint their statues, it was a sign of incompletion, whereas the Romans believed it showed pomp and imperialist virtue. With the rise of Christianity, white was used in opposition to black in order to emphasise moral dichotomies: the pure, divine white against the darkness. In some cases, however, white was used to show sickness or death, most notably in the pallid representations of the skeletal, crucified Christ.
In the Renaissance white was used to sublimate faces and backgrounds. Da Vinci even based his sfumato technique on the soft transition from light into darkness. Throughout the history of painting, white was considered precious for its ability to reflect light. It attracts the gaze even when used in the tiniest quantities, and illuminates the subject, drawing out stunning contrasts as seen in the works of Rembrandt, or in Vermeer's famous Girl with the Pearl Earring.
With the rise of Impressionism, white was used as the brightest tone amongst shades of grey. While Manet produced canvases which were forerunners to monochromes, including The Reader, which was almost pure white, Monet delivered a stunning gradient of whites whilst recreating the snow at his home in Giverny. The first true white monochrome appeared with the arrival of Malevitch's White Square on a White Background. The artist said 'I have broken the blue boundary of colour limits, and come out into the white'.
Modernists were equally passionate about white and valued it incredibly highly. Miro in particular questioned the status of white on canvases. In his painting Woman, Bird and Star white is in parts boldly painted, but is also distinctive for its absence around the star. Picasso, on the other hand, explored white in conjunction with his famous coloured periods. Piero Manzoni became famous thanks to his 'achromatic' paintings, a series of canvases produced exclusively in shades of white. Moving into the 20th century, white became synonymous with minimalist abstraction. For artists like Kandinsky, white was a cosmic colour, associated with a spiritual search for the absolute, guiding the artists as he seek to express his emotions.
Today, white remains an ever popular subject. Roman Opalka made his name creating a series of white numbers of a white background, while Daniel Arsham reinvents white walls in galleries by letting his artwork drip down onto them. White is a colour with multiple symbolic interpretations. The colour of divinity or humility; of purity and immaculate, of emptiness and absence, but always colour. If blue has Klein and red has Rothko, it appears that no artist has yet succeeded in fully mastering white – but maybe you'll find them in our selection!