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!

Search by Image

Save your search and find it in your favorites

16/18 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18

Categories

Subcategories

White

La Belle Margaux

Kintsugi

Jumping puddles

Morandi or Molotoff

Femme sur le terrain

They miss Her

Ascent of Dreams

Amy Winehouse

Basquiat boxe

The Intuition

Si moi, six mois

Ballerina No. 22, Series VIII

Ballerina No. 21, Series VIII

The Pain of the War 3

Pulling Out

Comes A Time

Aclous

North

Untitled

Untitled

Le cavalier 1

If you should fall, Into my arms and tremble like a flower

Ballerina No. 4, Series XX

All Stars and Stripes

A Little Bit of Kindness

Sans titre

La Boîte, composición 2

White peonies

Drops Falls

Not Tasty

Evanescent No. 2

Ballerina

Feeding The Birds

Broken

La Pie

Winter

Pause

Le Fer à cheval

Bleu Nuit

Douceur d'Enfer

The world

Love Sculpture (red, blue and white)

Ecstasy of Saint Teresa, After Bernini

Le chêne à trois troncs n°30

A view of the Park

I love you this much

Bouquet of daisies

L'étudiant

Melodies of Rain/1

Renouveau

Goddess

Smoke on the Water

Dessin n°7

Untitled (From the Valley Series)

Méditerranéen

Les Soucis et l'Insomnie

Convergence Végétale

Coureur

La Nena XS - White

Abondance

L'homme écoute le jour rêver dans le silence

Orchestra 3

Orchestra 1

Queen Forever

Untitled

Bijou de vase