White
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Superior Beings
Sumit Mehndiratta
Print - 119 x 160 x 0.1 cm Print - 46.9 x 63 x 0 inch
£1,289 £1,096
Place Within Reach 18.
Petr Strnad
Painting - 51 x 40.2 x 0.1 cm Painting - 20.1 x 15.8 x 0 inch
£275
Marine abstraite 2023-06
Fred Boutet
Painting - 65 x 100 x 2 cm Painting - 25.6 x 39.4 x 0.8 inch
£711
Marine abstraite 2023-02
Fred Boutet
Painting - 65 x 100 x 2 cm Painting - 25.6 x 39.4 x 0.8 inch
£711
Nailed it series No.163
Sumit Mehndiratta
Sculpture - 65 x 127 x 5 cm Sculpture - 25.6 x 50 x 2 inch
£2,933 £2,493
Marine Abstraite 2022-14
Fred Boutet
Painting - 100 x 100 x 2.5 cm Painting - 39.4 x 39.4 x 1 inch
£800
César Archibald
Agathe Lemaire Thalazac
Fine Art Drawings - 60 x 120 x 1 cm Fine Art Drawings - 23.6 x 47.2 x 0.4 inch
£4,444
Serie Cuerpos Escuetos
Enrique Pichardo
Painting - 190 x 190 x 1 cm Painting - 74.8 x 74.8 x 0.4 inch
£5,602
Noises From the Outside
Lukasz Olek
Painting - 100 x 70 x 2 cm Painting - 39.4 x 27.6 x 0.8 inch
£1,955
Helen Dzo Dzo Kaptur
Slim Aarons
Photography - 51 x 41 x 0.01 cm Photography - 20.1 x 16.1 x 0 inch
£1,733
Lotus Ornament - Black
Shepard Fairey (Obey)
Print - 61 x 46 x 0.2 cm Print - 24 x 18.1 x 0.1 inch
£667
Your rules my war - Blue
Shepard Fairey (Obey)
Print - 46 x 61 x 0.2 cm Print - 18.1 x 24 x 0.1 inch
£489
White Series, Profondeur
Isabelle Fournet
Painting - 90 x 90 x 1 cm Painting - 35.4 x 35.4 x 0.4 inch
£1,289
Meditation
Gina Vor
Fine Art Drawings - 55.5 x 76 x 0.1 cm Fine Art Drawings - 21.9 x 29.9 x 0 inch
£533
Not there 2
Gina Vor
Fine Art Drawings - 50 x 65 x 0.1 cm Fine Art Drawings - 19.7 x 25.6 x 0 inch
£489
Le kiosque à journaux de New York
Pierre Boulat
Photography - 28 x 28 x 0.3 cm Photography - 11 x 11 x 0.1 inch
£578
Striped Ensemble
Drew Doggett
Photography - 72.4 x 91.4 x 0.3 cm Photography - 28.5 x 36 x 0.1 inch
£2,073
Place Within Reach 20.
Petr Strnad
Painting - 70.2 x 50 x 0.1 cm Painting - 27.6 x 19.7 x 0 inch
£400
Place Within Reach 3.
Petr Strnad
Painting - 42.4 x 30 x 0.1 cm Painting - 16.7 x 11.8 x 0 inch
£178
The one who loves you a lot 24
Poonam Choudhary
Painting - 121.9 x 152.4 x 5.1 cm Painting - 48 x 60 x 2 inch
£1,285
Palm Springs party
Slim Aarons
Photography - 30 x 41 x 0.01 cm Photography - 11.8 x 16.1 x 0 inch
£1,466
Poolside social
Slim Aarons
Photography - 41 x 51 x 0.01 cm Photography - 16.1 x 20.1 x 0 inch
£1,733
Nelda and friends
Slim Aarons
Photography - 51 x 41 x 0.01 cm Photography - 20.1 x 16.1 x 0 inch
£1,733
Poolside gathering
Slim Aarons
Photography - 41 x 51 x 0.01 cm Photography - 16.1 x 20.1 x 0 inch
£1,733
Helen & Nelda by the Pool
Slim Aarons
Photography - 41 x 31 x 0.01 cm Photography - 16.1 x 12.2 x 0 inch
£1,466
Poolside socialites
Slim Aarons
Photography - 30 x 41 x 0.01 cm Photography - 11.8 x 16.1 x 0 inch
£1,466
Les Demoiselles de Monti
Orest Hrytsak
Painting - 116 x 89 x 2.5 cm Painting - 45.7 x 35 x 1 inch
£8,887 £7,554
Le vent du printemps
Isabelle Fournet
Painting - 120 x 123 x 2 cm Painting - 47.2 x 48.4 x 0.8 inch
£1,066
Dark Materials VI
James Sparshatt
Photography - 100 x 150 x 2 cm Photography - 39.4 x 59.1 x 0.8 inch
£2,950
N° 1237 Saint-Jean d’Acre 4.
R. Cavalié
Painting - 55 x 38 x 2 cm Painting - 21.7 x 15 x 0.8 inch
£480
Non-ideal cube eggshell effect
Irena Tone
Sculpture - 16.5 x 16.5 x 17.5 cm Sculpture - 6.5 x 6.5 x 6.9 inch
£1,333
Lewis Carroll - Die jagd nach dem snark
Max Ernst
Print - 33 x 25 x 0.1 cm Print - 13 x 9.8 x 0 inch
£2,488
Marilyn e il coniglio
Matilde Berretta
Painting - 50 x 70 x 0.2 cm Painting - 19.7 x 27.6 x 0.1 inch
£311
Composición en blanco y negro
Enrique Pichardo
Painting - 50 x 65 x 1 cm Painting - 19.7 x 25.6 x 0.4 inch
£420
HEtresencompagnie #09
Corinne Bresson
Photography - 40 x 40 x 4 cm Photography - 15.7 x 15.7 x 1.6 inch
£400
Bugs Bunny on fire - Basquet Ball - First Collectors Series
Carlos Pun Art
Painting - 90 x 70 x 3 cm Painting - 35.4 x 27.6 x 1.2 inch
£1,493
Prémices Diptyque N° 14
J/Y Delaunay-Israël
Painting - 100 x 200 x 3 cm Painting - 39.4 x 78.7 x 1.2 inch
£4,657
Où est Charlie ? III
Tanguy Mendrisse
Photography - 30 x 24 x 0.1 cm Photography - 11.8 x 9.4 x 0 inch
£111
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!