White
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Abstract Landscape 24.08.21
Viktoria Ganhao
Painting - 80 x 80 x 2 cm Painting - 31.5 x 31.5 x 0.8 inch
£978
JR au Palais de Tokyo, 28 Août 2020, 16H12, Paris
JR
Print - 100 x 70 x 0.1 cm Print - 39.4 x 27.6 x 0 inch
£2,035
Wege und Spuren #21
Stefanie Rogge
Painting - 100 x 100 x 2 cm Painting - 39.4 x 39.4 x 0.8 inch
£1,066
Composition 1831-2 carborundum
Pierre Muckensturm
Print - 65 x 50 x 0.5 cm Print - 25.6 x 19.7 x 0.2 inch
£1,244
Vingtquatre détails
Thomas Berthier
Painting - 78 x 52 x 0.5 cm Painting - 30.7 x 20.5 x 0.2 inch
£1,511
Rouge baiser
Martine Fauve Dechavanne
Painting - 61 x 46 x 2 cm Painting - 24 x 18.1 x 0.8 inch
£489
Left (paper) pieces : a cycle
Hansol Yoon
Painting - 53.4 x 38.7 x 2 cm Painting - 21 x 15.2 x 0.8 inch
£1,289
Sans-titre
Gianfranco Baruchello
Fine Art Drawings - 20 x 12 cm Fine Art Drawings - 7.9 x 4.7 inch
£2,222
One Dollar Rols Black & White
Karl Lagasse
Sculpture - 40.5 x 5 x 5 cm Sculpture - 15.9 x 2 x 2 inch
£1,689
Henry V, from Much Ado about Shakespeare
Salvador Dali
Print - 17.1 x 12.7 cm Print - 6.75 x 5 inch
£2,488
17 octobre 2022
Raymond Attanasio
Painting - 90 x 90 x 3 cm Painting - 35.4 x 35.4 x 1.2 inch
£2,222
Musack Terry Hall tribute
Shepard Fairey (Obey)
Print - 61 x 46 x 1 cm Print - 24 x 18.1 x 0.4 inch
£267
Soirée a Natashquan Canada
Louis Magre
Painting - 70 x 70 x 3 cm Painting - 27.6 x 27.6 x 1.2 inch
£2,400
Les Mamelles de Tirésias
Erte Tirtoff
Fine Art Drawings - 37 x 28 x 0.1 cm Fine Art Drawings - 14.6 x 11 x 0 inch
£3,199
Line 6
Gina Vor
Fine Art Drawings - 29.5 x 19.5 x 0.3 cm Fine Art Drawings - 11.6 x 7.7 x 0.1 inch
£89
Secret memories
Behshad Arjomandi
Painting - 100.1 x 100.1 x 2 cm Painting - 39.4 x 39.4 x 0.8 inch
£1,277
Fantasia and Fugue
Behshad Arjomandi
Painting - 100.1 x 100.1 x 2 cm Painting - 39.4 x 39.4 x 0.8 inch
£1,393
Currency War € VS ¥ - Version Vase
Li Lihong
Sculpture - 10.2 x 19.5 x 7.5 cm Sculpture - 4 x 7.7 x 3 inch
£444
Currency War White $ vs ¥
Li Lihong
Sculpture - 22.5 x 28 x 16.3 cm Sculpture - 8.9 x 11 x 6.4 inch
£1,777
Untucked
Amrita Bilimoria
Photography - 71.1 x 50.5 x 0.5 cm Photography - 28 x 19.9 x 0.2 inch
£1,824
No Transport Problems Slim Aarons Limited Edition Estate Stamped Print
Slim Aarons
Photography - 101.6 x 152.4 cm Photography - 40 x 60 inch
£3,550
Beauty and the Beast, Slim Aarons Limited Edition Estate Stamped Print
Slim Aarons
Photography - 101.6 x 101.6 cm Photography - 40 x 40 inch
£3,155
Éphémère-réaliste 2
Cécile Jaunet
Painting - 115 x 75 x 2 cm Painting - 45.3 x 29.5 x 0.8 inch
£1,333
Éphémère-réaliste 1
Cécile Jaunet
Painting - 115 x 75 x 2 cm Painting - 45.3 x 29.5 x 0.8 inch
£1,333
Pomme d'amour
Virginia Benedicto
Sculpture - 30 x 25 x 25 cm Sculpture - 11.8 x 9.8 x 9.8 inch
£1,689
La mini maison
Christophe Jacrot
Photography - 70 x 105 x 0.1 cm Photography - 27.6 x 41.3 x 0 inch
£2,844
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!