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!

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White

Venc VII

We Don't Know How Water Is Blue #2

Heidi's thoughts

Another man's wife

Automne

Meditating in the mountain

Jonas

Montagne enneigée, et sapin

Le Sacré coeur - Paris et son architecture

Voiturette vintage blanche

Little Cloud Vase

Grammature Di Colore (Color Weight)

La Revanche

Dog Dreaming

El vuelo

They watch

3108

Plage de Keraude

Bolchoi XV

A la villa Medicis

Shirt

Campagne enneigée

Tea Time - Museum Ludwig Cologne

Untitled

Pair of lamps in the style

No name, Painting, Oil on canvas

Tante Suzanne - Visage figuratif laine feutrée

Neue Kammern Enfilade V. From the Neue Kammern Enfilades series

Puerto de Barcelona

Banc Skate

Still life

Silver Roots

99101 - Midway Lights

Pompiertruche - Série Portrait Autruche personnifiée

Hope

Migration

The link

Raccordement

Bizou

Amazone

Woman with lute ( Ervina Kupferova )

Labour of love (east)

Pure Nature Beige

Echoes of Silence

See Ya Later

Flower Field Touch of Gold

Barcelona

Sarah Bernhardt

Vase ouvert

Black Burger CH Tribute

Eggs and Oranges With Vase

Untitled Gap

Power Flower

Kate Moss

Into the Beyond

Ondé "Sable"

Desfases

Marilyn Crying

Set of 3 design vases - Faith, Hope, Love

En attendant le jour

Plan de Métro Londres

La chance du debutant

La prière

Golden abstract

Horizon

Woman