White
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Marylin Monroe (1949)
André de Dienes
Photography - 27 x 28 x 1 cm Photography - 10.6 x 11 x 0.4 inch
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2017-03-P12 (GA20)
Guillaume Allemand
Sculpture - 21 x 21 x 3 cm Sculpture - 8.3 x 8.3 x 1.2 inch
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2017-03-P4 (GA19)
Guillaume Allemand
Sculpture - 35 x 35 x 3 cm Sculpture - 13.8 x 13.8 x 1.2 inch
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Peint in caelo et in terra
Olivier Liégent
Photography - 51 x 90 x 2 cm Photography - 20.1 x 35.4 x 0.8 inch
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2017-03-P6 (GA17)
Guillaume Allemand
Sculpture - 21 x 21 x 3 cm Sculpture - 8.3 x 8.3 x 1.2 inch
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Take four
Anet Duncan
Fine Art Drawings - 24 x 23 x 5 cm Fine Art Drawings - 9.4 x 9.1 x 2 inch
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Composition à l'encre
André Marfaing
Fine Art Drawings - 64 x 50 cm Fine Art Drawings - 25.2 x 19.7 inch
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Yappanoise #12
Harald Kröner
Fine Art Drawings - 72 x 178 x 2 cm Fine Art Drawings - 28.3 x 70.1 x 0.8 inch
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Yappanoise 18
Harald Kröner
Fine Art Drawings - 75 x 155 x 2 cm Fine Art Drawings - 29.5 x 61 x 0.8 inch
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La parisienne vaut bien une messe
Sylvia Galmot
Photography - 50 x 30 cm Photography - 19.7 x 11.8 inch
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Serie Vera y Victoria
Mar Sáez
Photography - 50 x 70 x 3 cm Photography - 19.7 x 27.6 x 1.2 inch
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1 - Les âges de la vie - Jadis
Mita Vostok
Photography - 60 x 40 x 1 cm Photography - 23.6 x 15.7 x 0.4 inch
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Sleeping Beauty
Paul Richard Mason
Painting - 115 x 95 x 4 cm Painting - 45.3 x 37.4 x 1.6 inch
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Glaces et feux 4164
Jean-Georges Inca
Painting - 80 x 60 x 5 cm Painting - 31.5 x 23.6 x 2 inch
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Struggle For Afterlife
Pascal Bernier
Sculpture - 25 x 50 x 30 cm Sculpture - 9.8 x 19.7 x 11.8 inch
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Une silhouette emballée (Madame Choui)
Jean-Robert Drouillard
Sculpture - 155 x 36 x 36 cm Sculpture - 61 x 14.2 x 14.2 inch
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Krilin
Toei Animation
Fine Art Drawings - 23 x 26 x 1 cm Fine Art Drawings - 9.1 x 10.2 x 0.4 inch
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Spring Blossom
Brigitte Chombart de Lauwe
Painting - 130 x 162 x 3 cm Painting - 51.2 x 63.8 x 1.2 inch
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Dessin actualité
Louis Pons
Fine Art Drawings - 24 x 22 x 1 cm Fine Art Drawings - 9.4 x 8.7 x 0.4 inch
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Rupture Sentimentale n°37-BA-3
Samuel Favarica
Painting - 76 x 57.5 x 1 cm Painting - 29.9 x 22.6 x 0.4 inch
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Sans titre #5
Thierry Valencin
Photography - 54 x 43 x 4 cm Photography - 21.3 x 16.9 x 1.6 inch
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Movimientos geometricos 3
Benbela Abounassif
Sculpture - 48 x 48 x 4 cm Sculpture - 18.9 x 18.9 x 1.6 inch
$5,592
Poetry of nature, Ref. 1508
Nasser Azizi
Painting - 170 x 190 x 3 cm Painting - 66.9 x 74.8 x 1.2 inch
$8,948
Bateau à sec sur le lac Baïkal
Christophe Gibourg
Photography - 100 x 100 x 1 cm Photography - 39.4 x 39.4 x 0.4 inch
$839
Vintage White Sofa
Charles Hollis
Design - 90 x 230 x 75 cm Design - 35.4 x 90.6 x 29.5 inch
$12,303
Artistic tooth - Black Leg
Hilbertas Jatkevicius
Sculpture - 18.5 x 10.4 x 9.5 cm Sculpture - 7.3 x 4.1 x 3.7 inch
$291
All Mixed Up
Danny J. Martinez Van Dame One
Painting - 30 x 24 x 4 cm Painting - 11.8 x 9.4 x 1.6 inch
$3,244
Suite Rimbaud 2
Gabor Breznay
Fine Art Drawings - 21 x 21 x 1 cm Fine Art Drawings - 8.3 x 8.3 x 0.4 inch
$503
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!