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Invención del eterno feminino
Yamandú Canosa
Fine Art Drawings - 49 x 65 x 1 cm Fine Art Drawings - 19.3 x 25.6 x 0.4 inch
€1,800
Waiting To Cross
Alain Le Garsmeur
Photography - 76 x 101 x 0.1 cm Photography - 29.9 x 39.8 x 0 inch
€1,100
Emdless love
Gor Avetisyan
Painting - 95 x 90 x 2 cm Painting - 37.4 x 35.4 x 0.8 inch
€2,800 €2,520
Waterproof Mascara
Claude Guillaumin
Photography - 40 x 60 x 0.5 cm Photography - 15.7 x 23.6 x 0.2 inch
€1,650
Everything will be okay
Mihaela Ivanova
Photography - 50 x 50 cm Photography - 19.7 x 19.7 inch
€680
Torrent62_0798
Yasuo Kiyonaga
Photography - 91 x 116.7 x 5 cm Photography - 35.8 x 45.9 x 2 inch
€2,500
Torrent46_0749-2
Yasuo Kiyonaga
Photography - 60.6 x 121.2 x 5 cm Photography - 23.9 x 47.7 x 2 inch
€2,200
Girl with chamomile
Mateos Sargsyan
Painting - 60 x 50 x 2 cm Painting - 23.6 x 19.7 x 0.8 inch
€728
Déesse lune
Isabelle Schenckbecher-Quint
Painting - 100 x 50 x 2 cm Painting - 39.4 x 19.7 x 0.8 inch
€1,200
Let the music play
Ines Khadraoui
Painting - 146 x 114 x 4 cm Painting - 57.5 x 44.9 x 1.6 inch
€4,000
Yuki the young yak (White)
Mark Ryden
Sculpture - 43.2 x 30.5 x 25.4 cm Sculpture - 17 x 12 x 10 inch
€1,800
Kingston Studios - Limited Edition Archival Pigment Print
Alain Le Garsmeur
Photography - 101 x 152 x 0.1 cm Photography - 39.8 x 59.8 x 0 inch
€1,145
Cowboy Taxi - Limited Edition Archival Pigment Print
Alain Le Garsmeur
Photography - 40 x 50 x 0.1 cm Photography - 15.7 x 19.7 x 0 inch
€575
Le Roi Des Chefs Et Le Chef Des Rois
Orest Hrytsak
Painting - 130 x 162 x 2.5 cm Painting - 51.2 x 63.8 x 1 inch
€23,000
Hesiode Et Homere
Orest Hrytsak
Painting - 162 x 130 x 2.5 cm Painting - 63.8 x 51.2 x 1 inch
€20,000
Fille coréenne et chat
Sounya Whang
Painting - 50 x 60 x 0.1 cm Painting - 19.7 x 23.6 x 0 inch
€1,297
Osiria Rose
Four Winds Artistry
Painting - 76.2 x 76.2 x 1.7 cm Painting - 30 x 30 x 0.7 inch
€2,618
Triptychon
Agnes von Rogister
Fine Art Drawings - 70 x 50 x 0.5 cm Fine Art Drawings - 27.6 x 19.7 x 0.2 inch
€2,010
Endless Solitude
Valeria De Santis
Painting - 180 x 140 x 3 cm Painting - 70.9 x 55.1 x 1.2 inch
€4,170
Midnight love
Valeria De Santis
Painting - 150 x 100 x 3 cm Painting - 59.1 x 39.4 x 1.2 inch
€3,690
Stabilität - Stability
Elke Eiermann
Painting - 40 x 40 x 4 cm Painting - 15.7 x 15.7 x 1.6 inch
€1,000
New York Black & White
Sabine Kalka
Painting - 50 x 150 x 4 cm Painting - 19.7 x 59.1 x 1.6 inch
€2,000
A & M Cafe - Arts et Métiers, Paris 3ème
Linda Moufadil
Painting - 60 x 60 x 2 cm Painting - 23.6 x 23.6 x 0.8 inch
€1,600
Tea Time - Museum Ludwig Cologne
Linda Moufadil
Painting - 31 x 61 x 1.5 cm Painting - 12.2 x 24 x 0.6 inch
€1,600
Lucius Ripple II
Léo Caillard
Sculpture - 63 x 44 x 23 cm Sculpture - 24.8 x 17.3 x 9.1 inch
€19,200
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!