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La forêt enchantée - série Paysage imaginaire et porcelaine
Isabelle Lafargue
Painting - 91 x 91 x 4 cm Painting - 35.8 x 35.8 x 1.6 inch
£3,350
Ambiance de plage
Clothilde Lasserre
Painting - 30 x 30 x 2 cm Painting - 11.8 x 11.8 x 0.8 inch
£598
It's a Tie 1 of 3
Larissa Schlick
Painting - 120 x 60 x 3 cm Painting - 47.2 x 23.6 x 1.2 inch
£2,680
Touch my shadaow
Frédéric Vangeebergen
Fine Art Drawings - 38.5 x 28.5 x 0.01 cm Fine Art Drawings - 15.2 x 11.2 x 0 inch
£447
Geometric Abstract Composition
Sante Monachesi
Print - 70 x 50 x 0.2 cm Print - 27.6 x 19.7 x 0.1 inch
£179
All Mixed Up
Danny J. Martinez Van Dame One
Painting - 30 x 24 x 4 cm Painting - 11.8 x 9.4 x 1.6 inch
£2,590
From Earth
Mario Surbone
Fine Art Drawings - 18 x 14.5 x 0.1 cm Fine Art Drawings - 7.1 x 5.7 x 0 inch
£250
La Voute
Venet Hervé
Fine Art Drawings - 80 x 60 x 3 cm Fine Art Drawings - 31.5 x 23.6 x 1.2 inch
£625
Mr et Mme Hulot - Photographie scène de vie en bord de mer
Denis Morel
Photography - 20 x 30 x 0.1 cm Photography - 7.9 x 11.8 x 0 inch
£393
Biagio 282 Table Lamp
Tobia Scarpa
Design - 39 x 13.5 x 39 cm Design - 15.4 x 5.3 x 15.4 inch
£5,806
Sagamore tall bowl Tondo Doni
Mario Cioni
Design - 20 x 25 x 25 cm Design - 7.9 x 9.8 x 9.8 inch
£706
Movimientos geometricos 3
Benbela Abounassif
Sculpture - 48 x 48 x 4 cm Sculpture - 18.9 x 18.9 x 1.6 inch
£4,466
Set of 4 Vintage Chairs
Giancarlo Piretti
Design - 70 x 70 x 55 cm Design - 27.6 x 27.6 x 21.7 inch
£3,573
Tingari cycle (RT03/0611BPG)
Ronnie Tjampitjinpa
Painting - 121.9 x 91.4 x 1.9 cm Painting - 48 x 36 x 0.75 inch
£10,367
View of Rotterdam
Ria Klaveren-Exel
Print - 46.3 x 57.5 x 0.2 cm Print - 18.2 x 22.6 x 0.1 inch
£357
White Dancer
Ulrich Trüssel
Photography - 93 x 93 x 3 cm Photography - 36.6 x 36.6 x 1.2 inch
£2,680
Ponte Garibaldi, Rome
Antonio Vangelli
Painting - 35 x 50 x 1 cm Painting - 13.8 x 19.7 x 0.4 inch
£3,394
Ring-shin Gold
Teruri Yamawaki
Sculpture - 45 x 34 x 30 cm Sculpture - 17.7 x 13.4 x 11.8 inch
£2,745
Wave touch of gold
Ans Pullens
Sculpture - 95 x 75 x 12 cm Sculpture - 37.4 x 29.5 x 4.7 inch
£5,313
Bateau à sec sur le lac Baïkal
Christophe Gibourg
Photography - 100 x 100 x 1 cm Photography - 39.4 x 39.4 x 0.4 inch
£670
Mujer con guitarra
Francisca Morales Alliende
Painting - 34 x 49 x 1 cm Painting - 13.4 x 19.3 x 0.4 inch
£3,047
Mascarade
Kristina Malashchenko
Fine Art Drawings - 30 x 21 x 1 cm Fine Art Drawings - 11.8 x 8.3 x 0.4 inch
£438
Dance
Nathanaëlle Dianga
Fine Art Drawings - 30 x 20 x 0.3 cm Fine Art Drawings - 11.8 x 7.9 x 0.1 inch
£884 £442
Breeze - Arm Chair
Poonam Choudhary
Design - 73.7 x 65 x 82 cm Design - 29 x 25.6 x 32.3 inch
£1,244 £1,120
Sculpture pot - Resilence
Poonam Choudhary
Sculpture - 26.7 x 20.3 x 7.6 cm Sculpture - 10.5 x 8 x 3 inch
£829 £746
Incision III
Jean-Michel Zazzi
Painting - 80 x 60 x 2 cm Painting - 31.5 x 23.6 x 0.8 inch
£1,072 £804
Incision II
Jean-Michel Zazzi
Painting - 80 x 60 x 2 cm Painting - 31.5 x 23.6 x 0.8 inch
£1,072 £804
Scarification II
Jean-Michel Zazzi
Painting - 120 x 80 x 4 cm Painting - 47.2 x 31.5 x 1.6 inch
£1,340 £1,005
Scarification I
Jean-Michel Zazzi
Painting - 120 x 80 x 4 cm Painting - 47.2 x 31.5 x 1.6 inch
£1,340 £1,005
It’s Not So Black and White
Laura Harris
Painting - 91 x 91 x 3 cm Painting - 35.8 x 35.8 x 1.2 inch
£3,845
London, lithograpie originale
Tony Soulié
Print - 90 x 76 x 0.5 cm Print - 35.4 x 29.9 x 0.2 inch
£804
Arty white candleholder "Pearls" for 1 candle
Irena Tone
Design - 27.5 x 12.5 x 12.8 cm Design - 10.8 x 4.9 x 5 inch
£670
La guerre des couleurs
Antoine Josse
Painting - 40 x 40 x 3 cm Painting - 15.7 x 15.7 x 1.2 inch
£715
Flocon d'Azur
Sophie Duplain
Painting - 80 x 80 x 2 cm Painting - 31.5 x 31.5 x 0.8 inch
£1,251 £1,063
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!