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Perfect Combination - Diptych
Kat Zhivetin
Painting - 70 x 50 x 1.5 cm Painting - 27.6 x 19.7 x 0.6 inch
$1,332
Sin título. Serie Blanca
Dario Berterreche
Painting - 70 x 50 x 0.1 cm Painting - 27.6 x 19.7 x 0 inch
$506
Sin título. Serie Blanca
Dario Berterreche
Painting - 70 x 50 x 0.1 cm Painting - 27.6 x 19.7 x 0 inch
$506
Sin título. Serie Blanca
Dario Berterreche
Painting - 70 x 50 x 0.1 cm Painting - 27.6 x 19.7 x 0 inch
$506
Sin título. Serie Blanca
Dario Berterreche
Painting - 70 x 50 x 0.1 cm Painting - 27.6 x 19.7 x 0 inch
$506
N° 1237 Saint-Jean d’Acre 4.
R. Cavalié
Painting - 55 x 38 x 2 cm Painting - 21.7 x 15 x 0.8 inch
$607
Minimalist Landscape IX
Behshad Arjomandi
Painting - 100.1 x 81 x 2 cm Painting - 39.4 x 31.9 x 0.8 inch
$1,140
Place Within Reach 25.
Petr Strnad
Painting - 70.2 x 50 x 0.1 cm Painting - 27.6 x 19.7 x 0 inch
$506
Shine Your Light
Lena Bera-Pancini
Painting - 90 x 90 x 90 cm Painting - 35.4 x 35.4 x 35.4 inch
$2,135
On the verge of a nervous breakdown
Sebastian Picker
Painting - 60 x 60 x 1 cm Painting - 23.6 x 23.6 x 0.4 inch
$3,933
Peace, Rest in Peace
Sebastian Picker
Painting - 40 x 40 x 1 cm Painting - 15.7 x 15.7 x 0.4 inch
$3,371
Rimbaud, Boulevard Saint-Michel
Ernest Pignon-Ernest
Print - 80 x 60 cm Print - 31.5 x 23.6 inch
$1,124
The Song of Love
Yasna Godovanik
Painting - 100 x 70 x 2 cm Painting - 39.4 x 27.6 x 0.8 inch
$1,405
Crock de toi royal - ultra white
Ninu
Sculpture - 30 x 30 x 17 cm Sculpture - 11.8 x 11.8 x 6.7 inch
$5,057
The colors of happiness
Emily Starck
Painting - 105 x 95 x 3 cm Painting - 41.3 x 37.4 x 1.2 inch
$3,146
Free style and Co
Marie-Aude Molin
Painting - 60 x 40 x 0.25 cm Painting - 23.6 x 15.7 x 0.1 inch
$517
Hotel du Cap Eden-Roc (Limited Edition Estate Stamped Print)
Slim Aarons
Photography - 152.4 x 101.6 cm Photography - 60 x 40 inch
$4,146
Concave
Nicolas Sanchez
Fine Art Drawings - 45.7 x 50.8 x 3.8 cm Fine Art Drawings - 18 x 20 x 1.5 inch
$6,000
All blacks / Dan carter
Peggy Cannonge
Design - 60 x 32 x 18 cm Design - 23.6 x 12.6 x 7.1 inch
$955
Ondulations lumineuses
Jean-Robert Franco
Photography - 60 x 80 x 1 cm Photography - 23.6 x 31.5 x 0.4 inch
$1,686
Etel - série Paysage de bord de mer de Bretagne
Jacqueline Clermont
Painting - 30 x 60 x 2 cm Painting - 11.8 x 23.6 x 0.8 inch
$382
Impossible behaviour-11
Galya Popova
Fine Art Drawings - 90 x 60 x 0.2 cm Fine Art Drawings - 35.4 x 23.6 x 0.1 inch
$1,798
Channel Blooming Bear
Blooming Bears
Sculpture - 50 x 33 x 23 cm Sculpture - 19.7 x 13 x 9.1 inch
$6,000
Maeduep. Dragonfly Wall decoration
WKND Lab
Design - 160 x 49.8 x 39.9 cm Design - 63 x 19.6 x 15.7 inch
$6,780
Sans Titre
Jean-François Spricigo
Photography - 22 x 57 x 1 cm Photography - 8.7 x 22.4 x 0.4 inch
$3,146
Sans Titre
Jean-François Spricigo
Photography - 27.5 x 27.5 x 1 cm Photography - 10.8 x 10.8 x 0.4 inch
$2,697
Sans titre
Jean-François Spricigo
Photography - 30 x 26 x 1 cm Photography - 11.8 x 10.2 x 0.4 inch
$2,922
Hommage à Picasso et à Fernand Léger (noir et blanc)
Erró
Print - 57 x 81 x 1 cm Print - 22.4 x 31.9 x 0.4 inch
$1,011
Misty Cathedral
Antoine Gaussin
Photography - 150 x 150 x 1 cm Photography - 59.1 x 59.1 x 0.4 inch
$8,428
L'esprit incisif
Emmanuelle Vroelant
Painting - 80 x 80 x 3 cm Painting - 31.5 x 31.5 x 1.2 inch
$4,045 $3,641
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!