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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Subcategories

White

La Déesse à la Montgolfière

La Déesse aux Trois Lunes

Fragments

Years Adrift [loser]

Untitled III

Untitled II

Succombe ! #2

Le Robot

Untitled

Le Nu aux traits

Un instant je me change 6

La Déesse Mère

Femme offerte, Monsieur curieux

Alek Wek

Georgianna

Menina hysterique

Untitled I

Seven

La manzana de Éva

Venus con marioneta

La dame de fer

Graceful Dualité

Genoux oranges

A symphony of tenderness and serenity (1)

Madame Mondrian

Poussières d'étoiles 04

La question

Nudes (Schellmann 96), 2001

Fumée 22e1

L'assise

Shirley

Emotion of skin

Aleksa blur

Le philosophe

Les sœurs

Almerina (1)

Stella

Voltagabana

Obscuring

Vénus buste Noir, buste Blanc

Etude de nu

Poussières d'étoiles 03

Femme aux cheveux longs

Summer landscape

Portraits of the Unseen

Angeline

The Human Nature

Predators

Nicole and the Red Apple

Femme à Tahiti

Habiter un corps (Ours)

Nu III

Nu IV

Pygmalion & Galateea – Metamorphosis

Pôle position

La crème était presque parfaite

Laetitia

Messy Pique Nique

White 2

Elle La Sirène

Elle Mon bain /

White 14

Clic I

La liseuse

Performance 3

Miroir à trois faces