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Hôtel Belvédère
Christophe Jacrot
Photography - 60 x 90 x 0.5 cm Photography - 23.6 x 35.4 x 0.2 inch
£2,666
Lx046. Lisbonne Portugal
Olivier Perrin
Photography - 20 x 30 x 0.2 cm Photography - 7.9 x 11.8 x 0.1 inch
£400
Lx043. Lisbonne Portugal
Olivier Perrin
Photography - 30 x 40 x 0.2 cm Photography - 11.8 x 15.7 x 0.1 inch
£400
Lx036. Lisbonne Portugal
Olivier Perrin
Photography - 19 x 30 x 0.2 cm Photography - 7.5 x 11.8 x 0.1 inch
£400
Still Life in White
Yuriy Demiyanov
Painting - 60 x 50 x 3 cm Painting - 23.6 x 19.7 x 1.2 inch
£3,377 £2,871
A poolside story
Slim Aarons
Photography - 41 x 51 x 0.01 cm Photography - 16.1 x 20.1 x 0 inch
£1,733
Poolside dreams
Slim Aarons
Photography - 31 x 41 x 0.01 cm Photography - 12.2 x 16.1 x 0 inch
£1,466
Party on the steps
Slim Aarons
Photography - 41 x 30 x 0.01 cm Photography - 16.1 x 11.8 x 0 inch
£1,466
Travailleur au bonnet noir #2
Timothy Archer
Painting - 65 x 50 cm Painting - 25.6 x 19.7 inch
£2,933
Cobra I
Veronica Jurkowitsch
Sculpture - 106 x 40 x 14 cm Sculpture - 41.7 x 15.7 x 5.5 inch
£10,531
Le chaperon rouge de Boston
Jean-Jacques Venturini
Painting - 116 x 89 x 3 cm Painting - 45.7 x 35 x 1.2 inch
£2,222
Arty white candleholder "Textures pearls" for 2 candles
Irena Tone
Design - 16.5 x 19.3 x 15 cm Design - 6.5 x 7.6 x 5.9 inch
£1,111 £945
White Top 41, Black Bottom 21
Anna Celie Nastasia Meyer
Sculpture - 67 x 61 x 15 cm Sculpture - 26.4 x 24 x 5.9 inch
£4,915
Way of the Waterfall
Corinne Lisa Costello
Painting - 121 x 97 x 3 cm Painting - 47.6 x 38.2 x 1.2 inch
£5,256
Bauhaus. Mr Klee and Mr Kandinsky
Slawomir Kuszczak
Painting - 100 x 140 x 3 cm Painting - 39.4 x 55.1 x 1.2 inch
£2,133
Ombre et lumière I
Feng Hatat
Photography - 48 x 32 x 1 cm Photography - 18.9 x 12.6 x 0.4 inch
£444
White butterfly, bronze stripe
Svetlana Martin
Painting - 70 x 50 x 0.1 cm Painting - 27.6 x 19.7 x 0 inch
£667
Very large size abstract enigmatic painting
Ovidiu Kloska
Painting - 130 x 130 x 3 cm Painting - 51.2 x 51.2 x 1.2 inch
£1,777
Seeking Calm - No 11
Maria Mueller Atelier
Design - 10 x 10 x 0.3 cm Design - 3.9 x 3.9 x 0.1 inch
£1,006
The Curve is the Shortest Path to Beauty
Antoine Buttafoghi
Photography - 120 x 80 cm Photography - 47.2 x 31.5 inch
£1,244
Sans titre #4
Goulwen (Leyto) Mahé
Painting - 100 x 73 x 4 cm Painting - 39.4 x 28.7 x 1.6 inch
£1,511
Pand'ours pop art Dior red
Christophe Comerro
Sculpture - 40 x 35 x 35 cm Sculpture - 15.7 x 13.8 x 13.8 inch
£782
Scratch on the Wire
Shepard Fairey (Obey)
Print - 60.96 x 60.96 x 0.2 cm Print - 24 x 24 x 0.1 inch
£400
Les déchirées, B-Side
Nagsoul
Fine Art Drawings - 65 x 50 cm Fine Art Drawings - 25.6 x 19.7 inch
£1,333
Mémoire de JingDeZhen
Feng Hatat
Photography - 32 x 48 x 1 cm Photography - 12.6 x 18.9 x 0.4 inch
£444
The devil is here #1
Alessandra Bisi
Painting - 24 x 35 x 0.1 cm Painting - 9.4 x 13.8 x 0 inch
£169
Le cailloux dans la chaussure
Antoine Josse
Painting - 30 x 30 x 3 cm Painting - 11.8 x 11.8 x 1.2 inch
£524
Végas pop art Naomi Vogue
Christophe Comerro
Sculpture - 45 x 30 x 45 cm Sculpture - 17.7 x 11.8 x 17.7 inch
£1,049
Circus circus.be, série les déchirés
Nagsoul
Fine Art Drawings - 50 x 65 x 0.5 cm Fine Art Drawings - 19.7 x 25.6 x 0.2 inch
£1,422
Inevitable Coincidence
Hansol Yoon
Painting - 29 x 21 x 1 cm Painting - 11.4 x 8.3 x 0.4 inch
£1,004
Left (paper) pieces : between A and B
Hansol Yoon
Painting - 38.7 x 26.7 x 1 cm Painting - 15.2 x 10.5 x 0.4 inch
£1,146
Atelier de porcelaine I
Feng Hatat
Photography - 60 x 90 x 2 cm Photography - 23.6 x 35.4 x 0.8 inch
£533
Fours traditionnel à bois pour le porcelaine
Feng Hatat
Photography - 60 x 90 x 2 cm Photography - 23.6 x 35.4 x 0.8 inch
£444
Neige printemps 24
Adrianna MJW
Photography - 40 x 30 x 1 cm Photography - 15.7 x 11.8 x 0.4 inch
£355
Games People Play
Mikhail Baranovskiy
Painting - 100 x 70 x 3 cm Painting - 39.4 x 27.6 x 1.2 inch
£2,222
Triangle du Tacul
Jean Jacques Boimond
Painting - 34 x 24.5 x 2 cm Painting - 13.4 x 9.6 x 0.8 inch
£683
Sans titre Ref (350)
Nicolas Dubreuille
Painting - 95 x 88 x 3 cm Painting - 37.4 x 34.6 x 1.2 inch
£3,110
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!