White
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Portrait of a girl
Anastasia Kurakina
Painting - 28 x 38 x 1 cm Painting - 11 x 15 x 0.4 inch
$1,493
The new scribbling girl
Regine Kolle
Painting - 90 x 125 x 3 cm Painting - 35.4 x 49.2 x 1.2 inch
$12,440
REF 6-23 - Composition n° 44
Jeanne
Painting - 73 x 54 x 2 cm Painting - 28.7 x 21.3 x 0.8 inch
$961
Dessin n°2 : La protégée
Marta Grassi
Fine Art Drawings - 65 x 50 x 0.1 cm Fine Art Drawings - 25.6 x 19.7 x 0 inch
$792
Nexus (en exposition jusqu'au 26/04/24)
Marta Grassi
Painting - 100 x 60 x 2 cm Painting - 39.4 x 23.6 x 0.8 inch
$2,036
Cherry Blossom No. 39
Elizabeth Becker
Fine Art Drawings - 30.5 x 22.9 cm Fine Art Drawings - 12 x 9 inch
$150
Hellebore No. 31
Elizabeth Becker
Fine Art Drawings - 30.5 x 22.9 cm Fine Art Drawings - 12 x 9 inch
$150
Death town
Cekyka Art
Fine Art Drawings - 21 x 29.7 x 0.02 cm Fine Art Drawings - 8.3 x 11.7 x 0 inch
$451 $430
Monarchie
Cekyka Art
Fine Art Drawings - 29.7 x 21 x 0.02 cm Fine Art Drawings - 11.7 x 8.3 x 0 inch
$338 $322
Noche estrellada
Sofia Alvarez Watson
Painting - 35 x 25 x 1 cm Painting - 13.8 x 9.8 x 0.4 inch
$396
Resumen astronomico
Sofia Alvarez Watson
Painting - 25 x 35 x 1 cm Painting - 9.8 x 13.8 x 0.4 inch
$396
Autrement
Catalin Guguianu
Fine Art Drawings - 160 x 110 cm Fine Art Drawings - 63 x 43.3 inch
$14,249
Group of Seven Awkward Moments (Lake and Mountains with Double-double)
Diana Thorneycroft
Photography - 73.7 x 50.8 x 0.3 cm Photography - 29 x 20 x 0.1 inch
$4,410
Dessein 13
J/Y Delaunay-Israël
Fine Art Drawings - 188 x 108 x 1 cm Fine Art Drawings - 74 x 42.5 x 0.4 inch
$2,545
Little dog
Lionel le Jeune
Fine Art Drawings - 65 x 50 x 0.2 cm Fine Art Drawings - 25.6 x 19.7 x 0.1 inch
$339
Suisse - Carnaval de Baden
Odile Pinto-Corbin
Painting - 40 x 40 x 3 cm Painting - 15.7 x 15.7 x 1.2 inch
$1,087
The principle of the thing
Hal Mayforth
Painting - 83.8 x 109.2 x 0.3 cm Painting - 33 x 43 x 0.1 inch
$2,500
Recette Brioche de foie gras
Noël Granger
Fine Art Drawings - 40 x 30 cm Fine Art Drawings - 15.7 x 11.8 inch
$124
Place Within Reach 3.
Petr Strnad
Painting - 42.4 x 30 x 0.1 cm Painting - 16.7 x 11.8 x 0 inch
$226
Spirit of the Camargue
Drew Doggett
Photography - 45.7 x 68.6 x 0.3 cm Photography - 18 x 27 x 0.1 inch
$1,866
L'un à l'autre
Laurent Anastay-Ponsolle
Fine Art Drawings - 50 x 70 x 0.1 cm Fine Art Drawings - 19.7 x 27.6 x 0 inch
$961
L'amour rue caulincourt #2
Laurent Anastay-Ponsolle
Fine Art Drawings - 59 x 42 x 0.1 cm Fine Art Drawings - 23.2 x 16.5 x 0 inch
$735
Illusive stability 5.
Petr Strnad
Painting - 40.6 x 30.4 x 1.9 cm Painting - 16 x 12 x 0.7 inch
$226
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!