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Pelican Heart, Western Australia
mat beetson
Photography - 100 x 80 x 2 cm Photography - 39.4 x 31.5 x 0.8 inch
£5,340 £4,806
The view of Schiedam 2
Elena Sokolova
Painting - 30 x 39.9 x 1 cm Painting - 11.8 x 15.7 x 0.4 inch
£257
Sophie ...
Marie-Blanche Giannorsi
Painting - 195 x 130 x 3 cm Painting - 76.8 x 51.2 x 1.2 inch
£5,340
Adorable Sphinx Sculpture
Dervis Akdemir
Sculpture - 65 x 40 x 30 cm Sculpture - 25.6 x 15.7 x 11.8 inch
£660
Altaïr - série paysage marin
Sylvie Le Pape dite Khali
Painting - 40 x 50 x 1 cm Painting - 15.7 x 19.7 x 0.4 inch
£392
Animal imaginaire I
Thomas Lévy
Sculpture - 28.5 x 42 x 25 cm Sculpture - 11.2 x 16.5 x 9.8 inch
£4,450
Obelisk
Julio Ramon Serrano Moreno
Fine Art Drawings - 52 x 61 x 0.3 cm Fine Art Drawings - 20.5 x 24 x 0.1 inch
£1,602
Vague landscape
Julio Ramon Serrano Moreno
Fine Art Drawings - 45.7 x 61 x 2 cm Fine Art Drawings - 18 x 24 x 0.8 inch
£1,068
Outside the enclosure
Dam Domido
Painting - 104 x 175 x 0.1 cm Painting - 40.9 x 68.9 x 0 inch
£4,361
Comme un cristal...
Jean-Robert Franco
Photography - 80 x 40 x 1 cm Photography - 31.5 x 15.7 x 0.4 inch
£2,225
Black tattoo
Sylvie Julkowski-Egard
Painting - 80 x 80 x 2 cm Painting - 31.5 x 31.5 x 0.8 inch
£1,335
Arbres de la vallée de la Clarée, Hautes-Alpes, de la série Sur les chemins du Briançonnais
José Nicolas
Photography - 36 x 36 x 0.1 cm Photography - 14.2 x 14.2 x 0 inch
£445
Vallée de la Clarée, Hautes-Alpes, de la série Sur les chemins du Briançonnais
José Nicolas
Photography - 36 x 36 x 0.1 cm Photography - 14.2 x 14.2 x 0 inch
£445
Col du Chardonnet, Hautes-Alpes, de la série "Sur les chemins du Briançonnais"
José Nicolas
Photography - 36 x 36 x 0.1 cm Photography - 14.2 x 14.2 x 0 inch
£445
Paysage d'hiver du refuge du Chardonnet, Hautes-Alpes, de la série "Sur les chemins du Briançonnais"
José Nicolas
Photography - 36 x 36 x 0.1 cm Photography - 14.2 x 14.2 x 0 inch
£445
Paysage d'hiver du refuge du Chardonnet, Hautes-Alpes, de la série "Sur les chemins du Briançonnais"
José Nicolas
Photography - 36 x 36 x 0.1 cm Photography - 14.2 x 14.2 x 0 inch
£445
E.o.d (End of day)
Martin Johansson
Painting - 100 x 120 x 3 cm Painting - 39.4 x 47.2 x 1.2 inch
£3,382
Unveiling illusions
Maria Esmar
Painting - 140 x 220 x 0.2 cm Painting - 55.1 x 86.6 x 0.1 inch
£5,696
Les amants
Guillaume Lachapelle
Sculpture - 6.4 x 17.8 x 12.7 cm Sculpture - 2.5 x 7 x 5 inch
£3,026
La soupirante
Guillaume Lachapelle
Sculpture - 13 x 11.9 x 7.1 cm Sculpture - 5.1 x 4.7 x 2.8 inch
£2,136
Insécables (Diptych)
Guillaume Lachapelle
Sculpture - 14 x 17 x 6.1 cm Sculpture - 5.5 x 6.7 x 2.4 inch
£3,382
Odessa
Reynold Arnould
Fine Art Drawings - 18 x 27 x 0.2 cm Fine Art Drawings - 7.1 x 10.6 x 0.1 inch
£401
Be My Star
Elvira Carrasco
Photography - 135 x 100 x 1 cm Photography - 53.1 x 39.4 x 0.4 inch
£3,916
Bouquet de marguerites
Patrice Marchal
Painting - 90 x 30 x 2 cm Painting - 35.4 x 11.8 x 0.8 inch
£1,825
Sleeping
Anthony Roaland
Fine Art Drawings - 46 x 64 x 0.1 cm Fine Art Drawings - 18.1 x 25.2 x 0 inch
£303
Meta Color XIX
Sven Pfrommer
Photography - 70 x 140 x 2 cm Photography - 27.6 x 55.1 x 0.8 inch
£2,216
Roudaki jouant de la harpe
Mohammad Ariyaei
Painting - 70 x 100 cm Painting - 27.6 x 39.4 inch
£2,848
Bruler dans tes yeux
Laurent Anastay-Ponsolle
Painting - 40 x 40 x 3 cm Painting - 15.7 x 15.7 x 1.2 inch
£1,113
Chanel Kid Cup – Sculpture
Léo & Steph
Sculpture - 55 x 15 x 15 cm Sculpture - 21.7 x 5.9 x 5.9 inch
£9,345
Encrucijadas y revelaciones
Gustavo Díaz Sosa
Painting - 27 x 55 x 1.5 cm Painting - 10.6 x 21.7 x 0.6 inch
£1,869
Trio ours PopArt Basquiat
André Gacko
Sculpture - 86 x 26 x 26 cm Sculpture - 33.9 x 10.2 x 10.2 inch
£3,382
Gathering under umbrellas
Lisa Golightly
Painting - 40 x 40 x 1.5 cm Painting - 15.7 x 15.7 x 0.6 inch
£4,984
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!