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Tropical Space Hostal
Simon Vega
Photography - 51 x 76 x 4 cm Photography - 20.1 x 29.9 x 1.6 inch
$2,488
Confusion
Aldona Jablonska Klimczak
Painting - 110 x 110 x 2 cm Painting - 43.3 x 43.3 x 0.8 inch
$6,559
Girl at the sea 3
Elena Sokolova
Painting - 39.1 x 39.1 x 1 cm Painting - 15.4 x 15.4 x 0.4 inch
$337
My Home : Dual Pandas (2)
Hong Yu
Painting - 190 x 95 x 25 cm Painting - 74.8 x 37.4 x 9.8 inch
$12,000
My home: Dual pandas
Hong Yu
Painting - 251.61 x 251.61 x 19.35 cm Painting - 99.1 x 99.1 x 7.6 inch
$12,000
Watchtower MLT IV
Sven Pfrommer
Photography - 100 x 100 x 2 cm Photography - 39.4 x 39.4 x 0.8 inch
$2,137
Presentation of the bride
Seth Clottey
Painting - 127 x 203.2 x 10.2 cm Painting - 50 x 80 x 4 inch
$8,900
Sculpture Shetani Homme Sage
Agostino Malaba
Sculpture - 100 x 35 x 30 cm Sculpture - 39.4 x 13.8 x 11.8 inch
$3,393
Série: Natura facit saltus - bézoard
Edgar Lissel
Photography - 100 x 90 x 0.1 cm Photography - 39.4 x 35.4 x 0 inch
$9,047
Pointview of the town - Positano Italy painting
Vincenzo Somma
Painting - 40 x 50 x 2 cm Painting - 15.7 x 19.7 x 0.8 inch
$368
Auspicious fairy crane - 4
Jinxian Zhang
Painting - 69 x 139 x 0.5 cm Painting - 27.2 x 54.7 x 0.2 inch
$4,410
View from the terrace (vertical version) - Positano painting
Vincenzo Somma
Painting - 50 x 40 x 2 cm Painting - 19.7 x 15.7 x 0.8 inch
$368
Morning Rise
Drew Doggett
Photography - 45.7 x 68.6 x 0.3 cm Photography - 18 x 27 x 0.1 inch
$2,149
Reconnaissance
Michèle Magnien (Mileg)
Painting - 30 x 30 x 2 cm Painting - 11.8 x 11.8 x 0.8 inch
$283
A sunday morning Tic Tac Toe game
Carlos Pun Art
Painting - 70 x 70 x 3 cm Painting - 27.6 x 27.6 x 1.2 inch
$1,600
Pingouin des Antilles
Herve Guibert
Sculpture - 120 x 80 x 80 cm Sculpture - 47.2 x 31.5 x 31.5 inch
$4,524
Melodie Monocromatiche - Vintage White
Daniela Pasqualini
Painting - 22.9 x 22.9 x 2.5 cm Painting - 9 x 9 x 1 inch
$350
Melodie Monocromatiche - Bianco puro
Daniela Pasqualini
Painting - 22.9 x 22.9 x 2.5 cm Painting - 9 x 9 x 1 inch
$350
Grande Mortaio Bronzeo for Martini & Rossi
Piero Fornasetti
Design - 23.5 x 23.5 x 4 cm Design - 9.3 x 9.3 x 1.6 inch
$396
Ode - Round Painting
Daniela Pasqualini
Painting - 30.5 x 30.5 x 2.5 cm Painting - 12 x 12 x 1 inch
$300
Luxury Art Toffee - Luxury Fashion
Michael Daniels
Sculpture - 33 x 10 x 10 cm Sculpture - 13 x 3.9 x 3.9 inch
$254
Following the light II
Kamalky Laureano
Painting - 150 x 100 x 4 cm Painting - 59.1 x 39.4 x 1.6 inch
$6,898 $6,554
My Beautiful Garden
Elena Shichko
Painting - 60 x 80 x 2 cm Painting - 23.6 x 31.5 x 0.8 inch
$2,714
Job offer
Simon Richard Halimi
Painting - 130 x 162 x 2 cm Painting - 51.2 x 63.8 x 0.8 inch
$47,497
You can do what she would want
Joana Choumali
Photography - 50 x 50 x 2 cm Photography - 19.7 x 19.7 x 0.8 inch
$16,963
Casse-toi pauv’con
Fabrizio Saracino
Sculpture - 37 x 64 x 3.5 cm Sculpture - 14.6 x 25.2 x 1.4 inch
$2,601
Audrey Hepburn Nothing is impossible 2
Gardani Art
Painting - 96.5 x 127 x 3.8 cm Painting - 38 x 50 x 1.5 inch
$5,900
They Know the way
Gardani Art
Painting - 137.2 x 106.7 x 8.9 cm Painting - 54 x 42 x 3.5 inch
$15,000
Le petit chien blanc
Patrick Moya
Painting - 80 x 80 x 4 cm Painting - 31.5 x 31.5 x 1.6 inch
$4,297
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!