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Hope in the Shadow of Death
Selma Tunca
Painting - 100 x 100 x 3 cm Painting - 39.4 x 39.4 x 1.2 inch
$4,809
Composition No.322
Sumit Mehndiratta
Painting - 30.5 x 91.4 x 0.1 cm Painting - 12 x 36 x 0 inch
$1,018
Barrigonas
Reyner
Fine Art Drawings - 29 x 19 x 0.03 cm Fine Art Drawings - 11.4 x 7.5 x 0 inch
$2,772
Los Colores del Viento
Adriana Velarca
Painting - 90 x 250 x 3 cm Painting - 35.4 x 98.4 x 1.2 inch
$11,486
Untitled "Requiem 6",
Mahmoud Hamadani
Fine Art Drawings - 56 x 77 x 1 cm Fine Art Drawings - 22 x 30.3 x 0.4 inch
$7,500
Untitled "Requiem 5",
Mahmoud Hamadani
Fine Art Drawings - 56 x 77 x 1 cm Fine Art Drawings - 22 x 30.3 x 0.4 inch
$7,500
Attractive energy
Yahaira Cohinta Vannucchi
Painting - 136 x 84 x 3 cm Painting - 53.5 x 33.1 x 1.2 inch
$35,533
Vital energy
Yahaira Cohinta Vannucchi
Painting - 136 x 84 x 3 cm Painting - 53.5 x 33.1 x 1.2 inch
$35,533
Composition no. 434
Sumit Mehndiratta
Painting - 34 x 46 x 3 cm Painting - 13.4 x 18.1 x 1.2 inch
$1,811
Nailed it series no. 166
Sumit Mehndiratta
Sculpture - 64 x 120 x 4 cm Sculpture - 25.2 x 47.2 x 1.6 inch
$2,263
Composition No.349
Sumit Mehndiratta
Fine Art Drawings - 46 x 91 x 0.1 cm Fine Art Drawings - 18.1 x 35.8 x 0 inch
$1,245
Composition No.318
Sumit Mehndiratta
Fine Art Drawings - 84 x 73.5 x 0.1 cm Fine Art Drawings - 33.1 x 28.9 x 0 inch
$1,018
Shine Your Light
Lena Bera-Pancini
Painting - 90 x 90 x 90 cm Painting - 35.4 x 35.4 x 35.4 inch
$2,150
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
Feeling your wind
Francesca Borgo
Painting - 40 x 40 x 1.8 cm Painting - 15.7 x 15.7 x 0.7 inch
$620
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 26.
Petr Strnad
Painting - 70.2 x 50 x 0.1 cm Painting - 27.6 x 19.7 x 0 inch
$509
L'esprit incisif
Emmanuelle Vroelant
Painting - 80 x 80 x 3 cm Painting - 31.5 x 31.5 x 1.2 inch
$4,074
Features of simultaneous interpreting
Tanya Grinevich
Painting - 254 x 254 x 5.1 cm Painting - 100 x 100 x 2 inch
$6,111
By the crash of a wave
Francesca Borgo
Painting - 100 x 120 x 0.1 cm Painting - 39.4 x 47.2 x 0 inch
$3,560
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
$1,018
Take me into another dimension I
Maria Esmar
Painting - 140 x 220 x 0.2 cm Painting - 55.1 x 86.6 x 0.1 inch
$6,790
Mes petits bonheurs B
Aude Herlédan
Painting - 50 x 40 x 2 cm Painting - 19.7 x 15.7 x 0.8 inch
$6,790
Une touche de modernité
Eric Munsch
Painting - 73 x 60 x 2 cm Painting - 28.7 x 23.6 x 0.8 inch
$1,188
Personajes en blanco y negro
Enrique Pichardo
Painting - 50 x 70 x 1 cm Painting - 19.7 x 27.6 x 0.4 inch
$685
Blue, Peach and Black Washi abstract
Jan Sullivan Fowler
Painting - 76.2 x 76.2 x 2.5 cm Painting - 30 x 30 x 1 inch
$900
Drawing 427
Sumit Mehndiratta
Fine Art Drawings - 41 x 58 x 1 cm Fine Art Drawings - 16.1 x 22.8 x 0.4 inch
$679
Drawing 426
Sumit Mehndiratta
Fine Art Drawings - 58 x 41 x 1 cm Fine Art Drawings - 22.8 x 16.1 x 0.4 inch
$679
Composition No. 385
Sumit Mehndiratta
Fine Art Drawings - 65 x 46 x 1 cm Fine Art Drawings - 25.6 x 18.1 x 0.4 inch
$849
Composition No. 323
Sumit Mehndiratta
Painting - 30.5 x 30.5 x 0.1 cm Painting - 12 x 12 x 0 inch
$792
Drawing 335
Sumit Mehndiratta
Fine Art Drawings - 76.2 x 56 x 0.02 cm Fine Art Drawings - 30 x 22 x 0 inch
$792
Composition No.252
Sumit Mehndiratta
Painting - 63 x 41 x 0.1 cm Painting - 24.8 x 16.1 x 0 inch
$566
Soft abstraction VI
Tamara Bakhshinyan
Painting - 100 x 150 x 3.5 cm Painting - 39.4 x 59.1 x 1.4 inch
$2,942
Urban structure 2
Alessandra Bisi
Painting - 120 x 80 x 2 cm Painting - 47.2 x 31.5 x 0.8 inch
$2,659
Couleurs et formes du monde - Gabriel, architecte de couleurs
Thomas Jeunet
Painting - 146 x 96 x 3.5 cm Painting - 57.5 x 37.8 x 1.4 inch
$3,961
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!