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Le chant des machines
Gwendoline Hausermann
Painting - 99 x 102 x 3 cm Painting - 39 x 40.2 x 1.2 inch
$2,488
Miami Stripes 09 11bn
Luca Artioli
Photography - 114.3 x 177.8 x 0.3 cm Photography - 45 x 70 x 0.1 inch
$5,000
Days Departed Impasse #5
Joseph Di Bella
Painting - 50.8 x 49.5 x 1 cm Painting - 20 x 19.5 x 0.4 inch
$2,123
Unmet horizons, part 1.
Veronica Giorgia Carlotta Giannini
Painting - 80 x 60 x 2 cm Painting - 31.5 x 23.6 x 0.8 inch
$1,984
Eglogue citadine II
Rose Passalboni
Painting - 25 x 25 x 3 cm Painting - 9.8 x 9.8 x 1.2 inch
$1,202
Alice Heine (1857-1925), épouse du Prince Albert 1er de Monaco, buste en marbre blanc par Fabio Stecchi (1855-1928), 1892, Carole. Palais Princier de Monaco
Julien Spiewak
Photography - 70 x 50 x 5 cm Photography - 27.6 x 19.7 x 2 inch
$4,410
Tissage urbain
Elsa Pallier (El'Pallier)
Painting - 73 x 92 x 2 cm Painting - 28.7 x 36.2 x 0.8 inch
$1,628
Tempête tropicale - Paysage abstrait
Nicole Gérard
Painting - 92 x 73 x 2 cm Painting - 36.2 x 28.7 x 0.8 inch
$1,555
Abstract composition in white
Tonino Maurizi
Sculpture - 28 x 21 x 3 cm Sculpture - 11 x 8.3 x 1.2 inch
$1,414
Le Jardin n°1 - série Abstraction
Cira Bhang
Painting - 70 x 60 x 2 cm Painting - 27.6 x 23.6 x 0.8 inch
$1,210
Allées et venues en paysage moelleux n°3
Éléonore Deshayes
Painting - 100 x 100 x 3 cm Painting - 39.4 x 39.4 x 1.2 inch
$4,524
La Mécanique des Fluides
Sozyone Gonzalez
Print - 40 x 50 x 4 cm Print - 15.7 x 19.7 x 1.6 inch
$905
La frôleuse de blés
Grégory Poussier
Sculpture - 80 x 40 x 35 cm Sculpture - 31.5 x 15.7 x 13.8 inch
$15,832
Steve Mc Queen le Mans
Vincent Gachaga
Sculpture - 85 x 80 x 12 cm Sculpture - 33.5 x 31.5 x 4.7 inch
$2,827
Vanity tribute to Andy
Ron English
Sculpture - 68 x 54 x 45 cm Sculpture - 26.8 x 21.3 x 17.7 inch
$15,267
You look at me sadly, Nevo 1
Nevelin Ivanov
Fine Art Drawings - 28 x 21 x 0.2 cm Fine Art Drawings - 11 x 8.3 x 0.1 inch
$170
Arguments for Nothing
Lena Ochkalova
Painting - 65 x 50 x 0.1 cm Painting - 25.6 x 19.7 x 0 inch
$1,018
Invisible touch 856
Iryna Kitaieva
Painting - 88.9 x 88.9 x 5.1 cm Painting - 35 x 35 x 2 inch
$1,716
Untitled IV (carmine)
Pinchas (Maryan) Burstein
Print - 53.1 x 62 x 0 cm Print - 20.9 x 24.4 x 0.01 inch
$2,200
Guernicouille de Pine d'Assaut (Tryptique complet)
Mad Meg
Print - 65.5 x 144 cm Print - 25.8 x 56.7 inch
$1,131
La interna contradicción
Uxue Con X
Painting - 120 x 80 x 2 cm Painting - 47.2 x 31.5 x 0.8 inch
$1,913
Sleipnir Mini Grund VIII 87751
Duilio Forte
Sculpture - 51 x 45 x 30 cm Sculpture - 20.1 x 17.7 x 11.8 inch
$565
Waterline (indigo) II
Heidi Carlsen-Rogers
Painting - 61 x 91.4 x 4.6 cm Painting - 24 x 36 x 1.8 inch
$2,000
Untitled Gap
Francisco Montoya Cázarez
Fine Art Drawings - 27.5 x 34 x 0.2 cm Fine Art Drawings - 10.8 x 13.4 x 0.1 inch
$814
Head 1
Lætitia Disone
Fine Art Drawings - 23.5 x 17.5 x 1 cm Fine Art Drawings - 9.3 x 6.9 x 0.4 inch
$1,018
Say it with a smile
Jacqueline Doyle Allison
Painting - 91.4 x 91.4 x 3.8 cm Painting - 36 x 36 x 1.5 inch
$1,495
Planet Earth
Michael Grine
Painting - 60.5 x 121.4 x 5.4 cm Painting - 23.8 x 47.8 x 2.12 inch
$1,500
Growing space VII
Gergana Tabakova
Fine Art Drawings - 25 x 25 x 0.1 cm Fine Art Drawings - 9.8 x 9.8 x 0 inch
$565
G_43
Alina Aldea
Fine Art Drawings - 70 x 100 x 0.5 cm Fine Art Drawings - 27.6 x 39.4 x 0.2 inch
$1,074
60lb of Dust, 2kg of Sand, 32g of Ash
Sun K. Kwak
Sculpture - 91.4 x 609.6 x 5.1 cm Sculpture - 36 x 240 x 2 inch
$72,000
Un été gris-bleu - série Les Dames de la côte
Françoise Lucq
Painting - 60 x 40 x 1 cm Painting - 23.6 x 15.7 x 0.4 inch
$1,108
Resting my bones
Prisca Akua Kwaning
Painting - 115 x 75 x 3 cm Painting - 45.3 x 29.5 x 1.2 inch
$2,160
Sans nom
Michel Soubeyrand
Fine Art Drawings - 40 x 27 cm Fine Art Drawings - 15.7 x 10.6 inch
$1,414
Black & white soul II
Cecile Filipe
Painting - 44 x 34 x 2 cm Painting - 17.3 x 13.4 x 0.8 inch
$1,131
Naturaleza en movimiento
Carolina Bellachi
Painting - 90 x 90 x 3.5 cm Painting - 35.4 x 35.4 x 1.4 inch
$1,131
A fine balance
Bernadette Youngquist
Painting - 41 x 41 x 1 cm Painting - 16.1 x 16.1 x 0.4 inch
$1,809
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!