White
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Peinture 11-2023-70
Alain Bécanne
Painting - 100 x 150 x 4.5 cm Painting - 39.4 x 59.1 x 1.8 inch
$1,705
L'impossible rapport sexuel IV
Olivier Hache
Painting - 116 x 81 x 5 cm Painting - 45.7 x 31.9 x 2 inch
$1,819
Untitled soft in white
Ronald Hunter
Painting - 80 x 80 x 2 cm Painting - 31.5 x 31.5 x 0.8 inch
$1,363
Dans l'effluve de Carmen
Yannick Bernard
Painting - 80 x 80 x 2 cm Painting - 31.5 x 31.5 x 0.8 inch
$1,807
Rhythmogramm 183 A
Heinrich Heidersberger
Photography - 59.4 x 42 x 0.1 cm Photography - 23.4 x 16.5 x 0 inch
$1,535
Winter forest - 3d minimalism textured abstraction
Nataliia Krykun
Painting - 40 x 30 x 2 cm Painting - 15.7 x 11.8 x 0.8 inch
$966
Peinture 11-2023-67
Alain Bécanne
Painting - 120 x 120 x 4.5 cm Painting - 47.2 x 47.2 x 1.8 inch
$1,364
Diptych: Dream Within A Dream
Ewa Matyja
Painting - 180 x 300 x 0.1 cm Painting - 70.9 x 118.1 x 0 inch
$8,009
La imagen distorsionada de Dios, de la serie Homo vs Sapiens
Gustavo Díaz Sosa
Painting - 45 x 60 x 4 cm Painting - 17.7 x 23.6 x 1.6 inch
$2,615
Cage / Sans titre
Meteo Meteo
Painting - 21 x 29.7 x 0.2 cm Painting - 8.3 x 11.7 x 0.1 inch
$131 $66
White blossom on green (stretched)
Nadine Antoniuk
Painting - 80 x 50 x 2 cm Painting - 31.5 x 19.7 x 0.8 inch
$637
The late night talking 3
Luca Brandi
Painting - 111.8 x 76.2 x 0.3 cm Painting - 44 x 30 x 0.1 inch
$2,810
Minimal Forms 02
Poonam Choudhary
Painting - 91.4 x 91.4 x 3.8 cm Painting - 36 x 36 x 1.5 inch
$650
Un autre visage
Éric Dabancourt
Fine Art Drawings - 30 x 40 x 2 cm Fine Art Drawings - 11.8 x 15.7 x 0.8 inch
$409
13 novembre - Libération
Karine Azoulay (1kazou)
Painting - 90 x 90 x 2 cm Painting - 35.4 x 35.4 x 0.8 inch
$1,705
Patterns 2
Kittisak Taweekitpinyo
Painting - 120 x 120 x 4 cm Painting - 47.2 x 47.2 x 1.6 inch
$2,728
Fragment Carbone (6)
Christophe Ruiz
Painting - 60 x 60 x 2 cm Painting - 23.6 x 23.6 x 0.8 inch
$1,023
Mystic River
Mariusz Makula
Painting - 119.9 x 100.1 x 4.1 cm Painting - 47.2 x 39.4 x 1.6 inch
$1,000
Ride Around Shining
Mariusz Makula
Painting - 70.1 x 119.9 x 2.5 cm Painting - 27.6 x 47.2 x 1 inch
$1,000
Unlimited (Unknown Power)
Yuiko Ráyka
Painting - 60 x 60 x 2.5 cm Painting - 23.6 x 23.6 x 1 inch
$3,183
Artemisia
Marie Julou (Tina McCallan)
Painting - 60.5 x 50 x 2 cm Painting - 23.8 x 19.7 x 0.8 inch
$1,137
Geometrical V
Luis Miguel Aparisi
Painting - 149.9 x 80 x 4.6 cm Painting - 59 x 31.5 x 1.8 inch
$2,560
Snowy mountain in winter
Nataliia Krykun
Painting - 50 x 40 x 2 cm Painting - 19.7 x 15.7 x 0.8 inch
$1,023
Starry sky black and white abstraction dropping Pop Art
Nataliia Krykun
Painting - 40 x 30 x 4 cm Painting - 15.7 x 11.8 x 1.6 inch
$898
Blanc infiltré de rouge
Olivier Hache
Painting - 116 x 89 x 5 cm Painting - 45.7 x 35 x 2 inch
$5,115
Variations cinétiques 1
Piero Cipolat
Painting - 50 x 50 x 4 cm Painting - 19.7 x 19.7 x 1.6 inch
$1,330
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!