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The escape (La huida)
Sonia Domenech
Painting - 120 x 100 x 4 cm Painting - 47.2 x 39.4 x 1.6 inch
£1,760
En solitaire… (paysage abstrait 2020)
Olivier Messas
Painting - 60 x 60 x 2 cm Painting - 23.6 x 23.6 x 0.8 inch
£1,333
This place needs your attention
Christa David
Photography - 25.4 x 22.86 x 2 cm Photography - 10 x 9 x 0.8 inch
£1,065
The show must go on no.9, Painting, Acrylic on canvas
Bea Garding Schubert
Painting - 140 x 100.1 x 1.8 cm Painting - 55.1 x 39.4 x 0.7 inch
£2,986
Painting research 4
Hongyu Zhang
Painting - 120 x 80 x 1 cm Painting - 47.2 x 31.5 x 0.4 inch
£4,266
Fishing for absurdity
Palina Kasino
Painting - 50 x 70 x 0.5 cm Painting - 19.7 x 27.6 x 0.2 inch
£2,077
Régate à l'horizon... II (Paysage abstrait 2022)
Olivier Messas
Painting - 30 x 90 x 2 cm Painting - 11.8 x 35.4 x 0.8 inch
£889
The Path of the Squares
Desa Vlahutin
Sculpture - 50 x 40 x 20 cm Sculpture - 19.7 x 15.7 x 7.9 inch
£3,576
Scrooge McDuck - Louis Vuitton III
Artash Hakobyan
Painting - 60 x 60 x 2 cm Painting - 23.6 x 23.6 x 0.8 inch
£1,820
Untitled - flower marble
Ilja Freer
Painting - 100 x 80 x 2 cm Painting - 39.4 x 31.5 x 0.8 inch
£1,786
The power of light 2
Nándor Bozsóki
Painting - 60 x 40 x 2 cm Painting - 23.6 x 15.7 x 0.8 inch
£2,284
Don't blame me
Elisabeth Laplante
Painting - 81 x 100 x 3 cm Painting - 31.9 x 39.4 x 1.2 inch
£3,706
White Top 37
Anna Celie Nastasia Meyer
Sculpture - 23 x 16 x 11 cm Sculpture - 9.1 x 6.3 x 4.3 inch
£2,071
White Top 39, Black Bottom 21
Anna Celie Nastasia Meyer
Sculpture - 56 x 16 x 15 cm Sculpture - 22 x 6.3 x 5.9 inch
£3,990
Black Bottom 21, Red Bottom 10, White Half Dot
Anna Celie Nastasia Meyer
Sculpture - 51 x 27 x 22 cm Sculpture - 20.1 x 10.6 x 8.7 inch
£4,204
Shallow deepness
Helina Menning
Painting - 100 x 100 x 2.5 cm Painting - 39.4 x 39.4 x 1 inch
£2,995
Green Pulses Numero 3
Edouard Tournier
Painting - 100 x 73 x 2 cm Painting - 39.4 x 28.7 x 0.8 inch
£2,853
Combate entre Kirk y Spock
Juan González Iglesias
Painting - 89.6 x 65 x 0.1 cm Painting - 35.3 x 25.6 x 0 inch
£2,995
I love this mess
Alison Aplin Artist
Painting - 76 x 91 x 4 cm Painting - 29.9 x 35.8 x 1.6 inch
£2,568
Loppy the lopsided vase
Alison Aplin Artist
Painting - 100 x 100 x 4 cm Painting - 39.4 x 39.4 x 1.6 inch
£2,924
Together In Electric Dreams
Kelly Jenkins
Painting - 46 x 46 x 4 cm Painting - 18.1 x 18.1 x 1.6 inch
£2,100
Rio Carnaval Shape Sublime
Anthony Horth
Photography - 61 x 50.8 x 0.3 cm Photography - 24 x 20 x 0.1 inch
£647
I will always be here for you
Elena Raceala
Photography - 61 x 91.4 x 0.3 cm Photography - 24 x 36 x 0.1 inch
£844
Women
Kirill Postovit
Fine Art Drawings - 20.5 x 25 x 0.1 cm Fine Art Drawings - 8.1 x 9.8 x 0 inch
£2,391
Trapezist
Eugene Berman
Fine Art Drawings - 23.7 x 31.8 x 0.4 cm Fine Art Drawings - 9.3 x 12.5 x 0.2 inch
£978
Où est Charlie ? IV
Tanguy Mendrisse
Photography - 30 x 24 x 0.1 cm Photography - 11.8 x 9.4 x 0 inch
£111
Paris Notre Dame Cathédrale de Paris
Bruno Fournier
Photography - 24 x 18 x 1 cm Photography - 9.4 x 7.1 x 0.4 inch
£711
Paris bateaux mouche I
Bruno Fournier
Photography - 18 x 24 x 1 cm Photography - 7.1 x 9.4 x 0.4 inch
£711
Paris bateaux mouches
Bruno Fournier
Photography - 18 x 24 x 1 cm Photography - 7.1 x 9.4 x 0.4 inch
£711
White eagle. A keen eye.
Lilya Volskaya
Painting - 40 x 25 x 1.5 cm Painting - 15.7 x 9.8 x 0.6 inch
£711
Swirling
Eduarda Tavares
Fine Art Drawings - 59.4 x 42 x 1 cm Fine Art Drawings - 23.4 x 16.5 x 0.4 inch
£1,155
Feeling
Jean-Humbert Savoldelli
Painting - 100 x 100 x 2 cm Painting - 39.4 x 39.4 x 0.8 inch
£3,199
Petite ruine au printemps en Grèce
Danielle Launay
Painting - 80 x 100 x 3 cm Painting - 31.5 x 39.4 x 1.2 inch
£1,777
Forêt flamboyante
Danielle Launay
Painting - 80 x 100 x 3 cm Painting - 31.5 x 39.4 x 1.2 inch
£1,777
Mon jardin de nuit
Danielle Launay
Painting - 100 x 80 x 3 cm Painting - 39.4 x 31.5 x 1.2 inch
£1,777
Apres l'orage
Danielle Launay
Painting - 80 x 100 x 3 cm Painting - 31.5 x 39.4 x 1.2 inch
£1,777 £1,511
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!