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!

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White

Mike Tyson

#Rrrabbithole Moscow

The Scream

The Feast of Trimalchio

Monopoloup II

Jeune indien jouant avec sa colombe

Paint In Black

Red flowers

La ligne des formes 3

Le sommeil des Apôtres (9e état)

Untitled

Untitled

Untitled

Un tit bout’ de nout’ berceau du peuplement - La grotte des premiers français Saint-Paul

Temps nouveaux

DIvergence

Le Meneur d'ombres

Wheight on their shoulders

Claartje

Tube en losange - Ecrin en plâtre et chaux

Silver Wind

Blowing wind

Sans Titre (Un poème dans chaque livre Paul Eluard) Ref BDNW2910

St Mark's Square, Venice

Les Pensées

Sauvage innocence

Le Banc

Le fantôme de la plume

Cineris from Renascere series

Pivoine

Terra Incognita - Le Grand Canyon

Kitsch crash

Interior de la Iglesia de Espejo (Cordoba) en septiembre de 1937

A walk in the moonlight

Vintage White Sofa

Le petit chef d'orchestre III

Collection

Sans titre

Team Love, Tapachula, Mexico

The Old Soldier VS Beautiful Young Zealot

Full tilt

Pretty Jeanne Ref BDNW4635

Un monde meilleur

Humility

The winner

The First Day

Aunty Mansa and daughter

El túnel

Les risques du métier

VI 04-22

Vintage Murano Glass Vase Model 5357

Requiem IV

Chapeau

Zen colors 020

Marx

Mechanical Room. Kesennuma, Japan

Espuma

Urban wallpaper 10

Zone A

Bush Coconut Flowers

Women's Business (Cérémonies de Femmes)

Sans titre

Rêve de l'Opossum

Bush Friut Dreaming, Mount Theo

Yosémite

Banksy VS. Blek Le Rat )