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Les Yeux Couleur d'Ambre
Sophie Duplain
Fine Art Drawings - 35 x 25 x 0.5 cm Fine Art Drawings - 13.8 x 9.8 x 0.2 inch
Sold
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
Johanna, Courrèges Haute couture, Champs-Elysées, Paris
Peter Knapp
Photography - 21.2 x 21.2 x 0.5 cm Photography - 8.3 x 8.3 x 0.2 inch
£3,216
Sans
Michel Macréau
Fine Art Drawings - 65 x 50 x 1 cm Fine Art Drawings - 25.6 x 19.7 x 0.4 inch
£7,592
Przywilej (privilege)
Bartlomiej Zalucki
Painting - 100 x 100 x 1 cm Painting - 39.4 x 39.4 x 0.4 inch
£2,546
El túnel
Jordi Valls Capell
Photography - 100 x 150 x 1 cm Photography - 39.4 x 59.1 x 0.4 inch
£6,981
Suite Rimbaud 2
Gabor Breznay
Fine Art Drawings - 21 x 21 x 1 cm Fine Art Drawings - 8.3 x 8.3 x 0.4 inch
£402
La travesía del funámbulo
Concha García
Sculpture - 12 x 22 x 10 cm Sculpture - 4.7 x 8.7 x 3.9 inch
£2,144
Sour cherries in my garden
Ignata Vasileva
Painting - 100 x 80 x 2 cm Painting - 39.4 x 31.5 x 0.8 inch
£3,394
Parallel lives, Painting, Oil on canvas
Bronle Crosby
Painting - 121.9 x 121.9 x 7.6 cm Painting - 48 x 48 x 3 inch
£5,142
Series: Portrait rendering #1
Keita Kushima
Painting - 90 x 70 x 3 cm Painting - 35.4 x 27.6 x 1.2 inch
£3,841
To embrace the presence I am
Juan Carlos Navarro
Painting - 100 x 170 x 4 cm Painting - 39.4 x 66.9 x 1.6 inch
£7,425
3 figures, 2 umbrellas
Steven Boksenbaum
Painting - 25.4 x 20.3 x 1.5 cm Painting - 10 x 8 x 0.6 inch
£166
The winner
Will Street
Fine Art Drawings - 35.56 x 27.94 x 0.2 cm Fine Art Drawings - 14 x 11 x 0.1 inch
£313
Madame et Monsieur
Lætitia Disone
Sculpture - 46 x 64 x 3 cm Sculpture - 18.1 x 25.2 x 1.2 inch
£8,486
Milk glass vases
Bennett Vadnais
Painting - 28 x 35.5 x 1.27 cm Painting - 11 x 14 x 0.5 inch
£4,466
Sans Titre (Un poème dans chaque livre Paul Eluard) Ref BDNW2910
Oscar Dominguez
Print - 32 x 46.5 cm Print - 12.6 x 18.3 inch
£8,486
Serie Mujeres Barbudass
Marina Núñez
Photography - 100 x 130 x 5 cm Photography - 39.4 x 51.2 x 2 inch
£6,967
Vase and two flowers
Helen Zarin
Painting - 101.6 x 86.4 x 5.1 cm Painting - 40 x 34 x 2 inch
£2,488
La République, c’est moi!
Fabrizio Saracino
Sculpture - 27 x 75 x 3.5 cm Sculpture - 10.6 x 29.5 x 1.4 inch
£2,054
The Old Soldier VS Beautiful Young Zealot
Robert Crumb
Fine Art Drawings - 25 x 37 x 1 cm Fine Art Drawings - 9.8 x 14.6 x 0.4 inch
£12,505
Draperies VIII
Madar Lili Adrienn
Painting - 140 x 120 x 3 cm Painting - 55.1 x 47.2 x 1.2 inch
£1,965
Rose épanouie
Françoise De Beaucé
Painting - 81 x 100 x 2.5 cm Painting - 31.9 x 39.4 x 1 inch
£4,377
You are my home planet
Joana Choumali
Photography - 50 x 50 x 2 cm Photography - 19.7 x 19.7 x 0.8 inch
£13,398
Tendril promise de la série paysages en difficulté / Struggling landscapes
Holly King
Painting - 61 x 50.8 x 2.5 cm Painting - 24 x 20 x 1 inch
£3,126
Paradis perdus n°9
Alain Fabreal
Painting - 130 x 97 x 3 cm Painting - 51.2 x 38.2 x 1.2 inch
£4,645
Portrait of a Boy
Anthony Roaland
Fine Art Drawings - 41 x 30 x 0.1 cm Fine Art Drawings - 16.1 x 11.8 x 0 inch
£339
Through pink glasses
Nikolai Angelov-Gary
Painting - 31 x 31 x 2 cm Painting - 12.2 x 12.2 x 0.8 inch
£402
Colorful woman
Shanna Kuratli-Fröhlich
Painting - 80 x 80 x 2 cm Painting - 31.5 x 31.5 x 0.8 inch
£2,680
Park Hoog Oostduin 14-09-22, Drawing, Pencil/Colored Pencil on Paper
Corné Akkers
Fine Art Drawings - 31 x 24.1 x 0.3 cm Fine Art Drawings - 12.2 x 9.5 x 0.1 inch
£265
Bailaora volcánica 17
Eva Lefever
Painting - 70 x 100 x 3 cm Painting - 27.6 x 39.4 x 1.2 inch
£3,841
La mer et la montagne
Jérome Obiols
Photography - 100 x 140 x 0.1 cm Photography - 39.4 x 55.1 x 0 inch
£3,305
Winter in Flanders
Albert Saverijs
Painting - 50 x 60 x 1 cm Painting - 19.7 x 23.6 x 0.4 inch
£8,486
A walk in the moonlight
Gordon Barker
Painting - 9.9 x 13.5 x 0.3 cm Painting - 3.9 x 5.3 x 0.1 inch
£239
Which one for the people?
Alcides Calizaya
Fine Art Drawings - 100 x 80 cm Fine Art Drawings - 39.4 x 31.5 inch
£357
2 Dining Chairs 'Tribute to Mackintosh'
Frans L. Van Praet
Design - 140 x 44 x 50 cm Design - 55.1 x 17.3 x 19.7 inch
£5,359
Apple Care Porcelain
Fidia Faleschetti
Sculpture - 9 x 7 x 7 cm Sculpture - 3.5 x 2.8 x 2.8 inch
£268
Fields of France
Emily Latimer
Photography - 44.5 x 54.5 x 3 cm Photography - 17.5 x 21.5 x 1.2 inch
£2,769
Kore's Head Couple
Nicola D'Antino
Sculpture - 30 x 20 x 38 cm Sculpture - 11.8 x 7.9 x 15 inch
£28,583
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!