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Le voyage de Miss D
Anne-Marie Vesco
Painting - 8.04 x 8.04 x 0.07 cm Painting - 3.2 x 3.2 x 0 inch
$448
Going for a walk
Eduardo Vega de Seoane
Painting - 160 x 180 x 3 cm Painting - 63 x 70.9 x 1.2 inch
$11,301
En el jardín
Eduardo Vega de Seoane
Painting - 130 x 97 x 3 cm Painting - 51.2 x 38.2 x 1.2 inch
$6,435
Sans Titre 10 - Ref BDNW9152
Jean-Pierre Stora
Fine Art Drawings - 11 x 25 cm Fine Art Drawings - 4.3 x 9.8 inch
$280
Sans Titre 14 - Ref BDNW9156
Jean-Pierre Stora
Fine Art Drawings - 17 x 14 cm Fine Art Drawings - 6.7 x 5.5 inch
$213
Sans Titre 3 - Ref BDNW9145
Jean-Pierre Stora
Fine Art Drawings - 7 x 10 cm Fine Art Drawings - 2.8 x 3.9 inch
$213
Sans Titre 13 - Ref BDNW9155
Jean-Pierre Stora
Fine Art Drawings - 10 x 25 cm Fine Art Drawings - 3.9 x 9.8 inch
$280
Sans Titre 2 - Ref BDNW9144
Jean-Pierre Stora
Fine Art Drawings - 21 x 17 cm Fine Art Drawings - 8.3 x 6.7 inch
$213
Portrait
Albert Fernand-Renault
Fine Art Drawings - 25 x 25 x 0.1 cm Fine Art Drawings - 9.8 x 9.8 x 0 inch
$336
Untitled #6. From the series There is an ocean in my glass
Ying Chen
Photography - 152.4 x 203.2 x 0.3 cm Photography - 60 x 80 x 0.1 inch
$4,000
Winter in Berleburg
Karl-Karol Chrobok
Painting - 105 x 70 x 2.2 cm Painting - 41.3 x 27.6 x 0.9 inch
$4,036
Don't want to hear it
Kazuhiko Tanaka
Sculpture - 12 x 8 x 4.5 cm Sculpture - 4.7 x 3.1 x 1.8 inch
$320
Préparatifs la veille de fête
Eugenia Jaeger
Painting - 140 x 100 x 2 cm Painting - 55.1 x 39.4 x 0.8 inch
$3,924
Songe revisité
Serge Kalinowski
Painting - 20 x 40 x 3 cm Painting - 7.9 x 15.7 x 1.2 inch
$533 $480
Self-Portrait 24.14
Arthur Hent
Fine Art Drawings - 42 x 30 x 0.1 cm Fine Art Drawings - 16.5 x 11.8 x 0 inch
$448
Voiturette vintage blanche
Art Pej
Sculpture - 40 x 77 x 41 cm Sculpture - 15.7 x 30.3 x 16.1 inch
$650
Gribouillage
Franck Rozet
Photography - 100 x 67 x 0.6 cm Photography - 39.4 x 26.4 x 0.2 inch
$2,747
Stockage, Waregem
Jérémie Lenoir
Photography - 120 x 120 x 1 cm Photography - 47.2 x 47.2 x 0.4 inch
$5,381
Marbles 20
Carlos Bruscianelli
Painting - 121.9 x 172.7 x 3.8 cm Painting - 48 x 68 x 1.5 inch
$37,000
Voiture chauffe eau
Yannis Lagresle
Sculpture - 21 x 52 x 26 cm Sculpture - 8.3 x 20.5 x 10.2 inch
$3,812
Vintage Murano Glass Vase Model 5357
Aureliano Toso
Design - 39 x 14 x 14 cm Design - 15.4 x 5.5 x 5.5 inch
$3,812
Valsesia (black and red)
Mario Domenicale
Painting - 28 x 42 x 0.2 cm Painting - 11 x 16.5 x 0.1 inch
$202
Space: is NOT the final frontier
Rene Gagnon
Print - 55.88 x 76.2 x 0.2 cm Print - 22 x 30 x 0.1 inch
$426
Fragment cathédrale
Florence Jarrige
Sculpture - 20 x 30 x 15 cm Sculpture - 7.9 x 11.8 x 5.9 inch
$3,924
Phénomènes, Untitled (Volcano eruption #7)
Marina Gadonneix
Photography - 29 x 22.4 x 0.2 cm Photography - 11.4 x 8.8 x 0.1 inch
$157
Spatial Anomaly
Colleen Wolstenholme
Sculpture - 89 x 89 x 26 cm Sculpture - 35 x 35 x 10.2 inch
$8,128
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
$3,924
Peace, Rest in Peace
Sebastian Picker
Painting - 40 x 40 x 1 cm Painting - 15.7 x 15.7 x 0.4 inch
$3,363
Diptyque, La Havane home and Garden
Thomas Henriot
Fine Art Drawings - 97 x 137 x 0.2 cm Fine Art Drawings - 38.2 x 53.9 x 0.1 inch
$5,606
Stronger Together
Bronle Crosby
Painting - 182.9 x 243.8 x 6.4 cm Painting - 72 x 96 x 2.5 inch
$12,500
May the force be with you!
Amandine André
Photography - 11.5 x 16.5 x 1 cm Photography - 4.5 x 6.5 x 0.4 inch
$84
Yellow (Santa Maria)
Carlos Estrela
Painting - 100 x 100 x 4 cm Painting - 39.4 x 39.4 x 1.6 inch
$3,386
Cueillette de coton
Edna De Araraquara
Painting - 60 x 80 x 2 cm Painting - 23.6 x 31.5 x 0.8 inch
$2,691
The kettle
Claude Billès
Photography - 100 x 75 x 0.5 cm Photography - 39.4 x 29.5 x 0.2 inch
$2,354
New Mexico No. 12
Elizabeth Becker
Painting - 40.6 x 50.8 x 0.3 cm Painting - 16 x 20 x 0.1 inch
$230
Appalachians No. 13
Elizabeth Becker
Painting - 40.6 x 50.8 x 0.3 cm Painting - 16 x 20 x 0.1 inch
$180
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!