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Detrás de máscaras
Patricia Restrepo
Painting - 60.96 x 50.8 x 3 cm Painting - 24 x 20 x 1.2 inch
£4,779
Planète Mélancolie - livre d’artiste (7)
Julie Ruelle
Print - 28 x 20 x 2.5 cm Print - 11 x 7.9 x 1 inch
£447
Planète Mélancolie - livre d’artiste (6)
Julie Ruelle
Print - 28 x 20 x 2.5 cm Print - 11 x 7.9 x 1 inch
£447
Reflections of Modernity: Abstract Impressions at Mies van der Rohe Pavilion
Daniel Holfeld
Photography - 20 x 30 cm Photography - 7.9 x 11.8 inch
£536
Le bien et le mal (2)
Chantal Westby
Painting - 122 x 91 x 5 cm Painting - 48 x 35.8 x 2 inch
£2,144
Rimbaud, Boulevard Saint-Michel
Ernest Pignon-Ernest
Print - 80 x 60 cm Print - 31.5 x 23.6 inch
£893
El futuro ha llegado
Richard García
Painting - 47 x 38 x 1 cm Painting - 18.5 x 15 x 0.4 inch
£1,411
No sé de dónde vienen los aullidos
Richard García
Painting - 47 x 38 x 1 cm Painting - 18.5 x 15 x 0.4 inch
£1,411
Heart on white - Love, Amour, Amore, Liebe 3D white plaster
Nataliia Krykun
Painting - 7 x 7 x 1 cm Painting - 2.8 x 2.8 x 0.4 inch
£89
Heart - Love, Amour, Amore, Liebe 3D white plaster
Nataliia Krykun
Painting - 7 x 7 x 1 cm Painting - 2.8 x 2.8 x 0.4 inch
£89
Place Within Reach 24
Petr Strnad
Painting - 70.2 x 50 x 0.1 cm Painting - 27.6 x 19.7 x 0 inch
£402
My friends in Hawaii (Santiago loves to paddle)
Jullia Kim
Painting - 30 x 30 x 2 cm Painting - 11.8 x 11.8 x 0.8 inch
£1,429
My friends in hawaii (Teddy in ab slider)
Jullia Kim
Painting - 30 x 30 x 2 cm Painting - 11.8 x 11.8 x 0.8 inch
£1,429
Sans titre #5
Goulwen (Leyto) Mahé
Painting - 90 x 70 x 2 cm Painting - 35.4 x 27.6 x 0.8 inch
£1,340
The Spirit of Love
Delyafruz Bagirova
Painting - 100 x 70 x 2 cm Painting - 39.4 x 27.6 x 0.8 inch
£2,501
The time that PATH peacefully 1 and 2 (diptyque)
Bianca Caloi di Grassi
Fine Art Drawings - 82 x 84 x 3 cm Fine Art Drawings - 32.3 x 33.1 x 1.2 inch
£1,840
Before A Baby Comes Out Of Its Mother's Body
Wenqin Chen
Sculpture - 18 x 15 x 15 cm Sculpture - 7.1 x 5.9 x 5.9 inch
£10,719
Two Penguins
Dr Sanjay Arora
Photography - 40 x 60 x 2 cm Photography - 15.7 x 23.6 x 0.8 inch
£2,367
Stage Dance
Dr Sanjay Arora
Photography - 40 x 60 x 2 cm Photography - 15.7 x 23.6 x 0.8 inch
£2,367
Chapelle perdue
Christophe Jacrot
Photography - 60 x 90 x 0.1 cm Photography - 23.6 x 35.4 x 0 inch
£2,412
Centauros III
Amrita Bilimoria
Photography - 101.6 x 152.4 x 0.5 cm Photography - 40 x 60 x 0.2 inch
£4,561
Santorini Magic
Sokratis Evgenidis
Painting - 80 x 80 x 3 cm Painting - 31.5 x 31.5 x 1.2 inch
£4,913
Over the Millennia
Nemanja Nikolic
Painting - 121.9 x 91.4 x 2 cm Painting - 48 x 36 x 0.78 inch
£1,518
Heart white - Love, Amour, Amore, Liebe 3D plaster
Nataliia Krykun
Painting - 120 x 120 x 4 cm Painting - 47.2 x 47.2 x 1.6 inch
£3,126
Binary Flow 1
Bianca Caloi di Grassi
Fine Art Drawings - 71 x 97 x 3 cm Fine Art Drawings - 28 x 38.2 x 1.2 inch
£13,398
Jackson Pollock (v3) splash 400% & 100%
Bearbrick
Design - 28 x 10 x 10 cm Design - 11 x 3.9 x 3.9 inch
£411
Principios de la Hospitalidad I
Isabel Herrera
Photography - 38.1 x 38.1 x 1 cm Photography - 15 x 15 x 0.4 inch
£1,563
On those beautiful summer days
Ricardo Fabián Bertona
Painting - 70 x 120 x 1 cm Painting - 27.6 x 47.2 x 0.4 inch
Sold
Seeking Calm - No 3
Maria Mueller Atelier
Design - 10 x 10 x 0.3 cm Design - 3.9 x 3.9 x 0.1 inch
£1,011
Seeking Calm - No 22
Maria Mueller Atelier
Design - 10 x 10 x 0.3 cm Design - 3.9 x 3.9 x 0.1 inch
£1,011
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!