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Hydrocarbure
Stéphane Martin
Photography - 40 x 30 x 0.04 cm Photography - 15.7 x 11.8 x 0 inch
$171
Ondé "Sable"
Christian Renonciat
Sculpture - 100 x 150 x 15 cm Sculpture - 39.4 x 59.1 x 5.9 inch
$18,188
Empreinte minerale 5
Roland Moreau
Painting - 80 x 80 x 4 cm Painting - 31.5 x 31.5 x 1.6 inch
$2,046
Lady from the past
Eliana Barbosa
Photography - 30.5 x 30.5 x 2.5 cm Photography - 12 x 12 x 1 inch
$625
Quatre quadrilatères 508
Anneke Klein-Kranenbarg
Sculpture - 25 x 25 x 3.5 cm Sculpture - 9.8 x 9.8 x 1.4 inch
$1,364
El abrazo I
Pere Bennàssar Obrador
Sculpture - 95 x 48 x 33 cm Sculpture - 37.4 x 18.9 x 13 inch
$5,076
Cascade no. 1
Jennifer Idrizi
Fine Art Drawings - 36 x 26 x 0.5 cm Fine Art Drawings - 14.2 x 10.2 x 0.2 inch
$767
Nu (Un poème dans chaque livre Paul Eluard) Ref BDNW2985
Yves Tanguy
Print - 51 x 33 cm Print - 20.1 x 13 inch
$1,080
Invincible
Emily Redd
Fine Art Drawings - 86.4 x 63.5 x 0.3 cm Fine Art Drawings - 34 x 25 x 0.1 inch
$2,900
Was für ein Glück (Gestern)
Paul Thierry
Print - 100 x 50 x 8 cm Print - 39.4 x 19.7 x 3.1 inch
$2,599
Flower Field Touch of Gold
Ans Pullens
Painting - 95 x 75 x 8 cm Painting - 37.4 x 29.5 x 3.1 inch
$6,252
A longing no. 14
Joseph Adolphe
Painting - 203 x 182 x 4 cm Painting - 79.9 x 71.7 x 1.6 inch
$40,924
Composition _ Droving love in white
Tadas Zaicikas
Painting - 101.6 x 101.6 x 4.6 cm Painting - 40 x 40 x 1.8 inch
$19,872
Blurry minds #2
Rani Bruchstein
Photography - 90 x 60 x 2 cm Photography - 35.4 x 23.6 x 0.8 inch
$4,951
Floating
a Ee
Fine Art Drawings - 21.4 x 14.7 x 1 cm Fine Art Drawings - 8.4 x 5.8 x 0.4 inch
$4,965
Natura morta (Still life)
Gino Severini
Fine Art Drawings - 20 x 13 x 0.2 cm Fine Art Drawings - 7.9 x 5.1 x 0.1 inch
$11,936
L’univers de la persécution
Johannes Gachnang
Print - 50 x 65 x 0.05 cm Print - 19.7 x 25.6 x 0 inch
$455
Contact color relief
Aurélie Trabaud
Sculpture - 54 x 54 x 4.2 cm Sculpture - 21.3 x 21.3 x 1.7 inch
$3,638
Geometric Abstract Composition
Sante Monachesi
Print - 70 x 50 x 0.2 cm Print - 27.6 x 19.7 x 0.1 inch
$227
Into the love No.2
Stephen Rowe
Painting - 152.4 x 129.5 x 5.1 cm Painting - 60 x 51 x 2 inch
$8,750
From Earth
Mario Surbone
Fine Art Drawings - 18 x 14.5 x 0.1 cm Fine Art Drawings - 7.1 x 5.7 x 0 inch
$318
Marlow's thoughts (in his dark heart)
Rhett Boland
Fine Art Drawings - 29 x 21 x 1 cm Fine Art Drawings - 11.4 x 8.3 x 0.4 inch
$2,684
Porcelaine de Rêve - Bleu N°7
Anany
Design - 0.3 x 18.5 x 18.5 cm Design - 0.1 x 7.3 x 7.3 inch
$273
Raccordement
Mehdi Cibille Le MoDuLe De ZeeR
Painting - 120 x 120 x 2 cm Painting - 47.2 x 47.2 x 0.8 inch
$7,955
Can you keep a secret
Marisol Evora
Painting - 100 x 100 x 3.7 cm Painting - 39.4 x 39.4 x 1.5 inch
$13,817
Attraction
Vincent Bargis M7
Painting - 100.3 x 100.3 x 2.5 cm Painting - 39.5 x 39.5 x 1 inch
$6,300
Serie Papelitos de Color
Sara Stewart Brown
Painting - 94 x 152 x 1 cm Painting - 37 x 59.8 x 0.4 inch
$9,458
81 Blue on White
Anita Agnieszka Edvinsson
Painting - 76 x 57 x 1 cm Painting - 29.9 x 22.4 x 0.4 inch
$3,297
It's a Tie 1 of 3
Larissa Schlick
Painting - 120 x 60 x 3 cm Painting - 47.2 x 23.6 x 1.2 inch
$3,410
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!