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Farmhouse with Chickens
Michael Hill
Painting - 60 x 60 x 4 cm Painting - 23.6 x 23.6 x 1.6 inch
$1,602
Soleil d'hiver
Mathilde de Bellecombe
Painting - 100 x 80 x 2 cm Painting - 39.4 x 31.5 x 0.8 inch
$2,666 $2,400
Franclisa
Gbemileke Blessing Adegboro
Painting - 91.9 x 91.9 x 2.5 cm Painting - 36.2 x 36.2 x 1 inch
$1,800
Thought chaos in tears
Jacqueline Dey
Painting - 50 x 59.9 x 1.8 cm Painting - 19.7 x 23.6 x 0.7 inch
$695
The layers get to me
Michael Alan
Fine Art Drawings - 46.7 x 34.3 x 0.1 cm Fine Art Drawings - 18.4 x 13.5 x 0.04 inch
$1,364
Chronometer Series 4
Lena Ochkalova
Painting - 65 x 50 x 0.1 cm Painting - 25.6 x 19.7 x 0 inch
$682
Chronometer Series 2
Lena Ochkalova
Painting - 65 x 50 x 0.1 cm Painting - 25.6 x 19.7 x 0 inch
$682
Morning Sunbathing
Alexander Levich
Painting - 45 x 35 x 2 cm Painting - 17.7 x 13.8 x 0.8 inch
$989
Mer en hiver - série Mer
Françoise Lavenu
Painting - 60 x 73 x 2 cm Painting - 23.6 x 28.7 x 0.8 inch
$1,364
Élévation au Musée - Corée
Jean-Marc Stoeffler
Photography - 37 x 47 x 1 cm Photography - 14.6 x 18.5 x 0.4 inch
$284
Noises From the Outside
Lukasz Olek
Painting - 100 x 70 x 2 cm Painting - 39.4 x 27.6 x 0.8 inch
$2,501
White landscape in 3D
Nataliia Krykun
Painting - 120 x 180 x 4 cm Painting - 47.2 x 70.9 x 1.6 inch
$7,957
Alpilles
Agnès Tiollier
Fine Art Drawings - 50 x 70 x 0.18 cm Fine Art Drawings - 19.7 x 27.6 x 0.1 inch
$909
Intimate explosion
Michael Alan
Fine Art Drawings - 33 x 27.9 x 0.1 cm Fine Art Drawings - 13 x 11 x 0.04 inch
$3,069
Desert signe LV (SG246)
Sylvie Guyomard
Sculpture - 40 x 50 x 5 cm Sculpture - 15.7 x 19.7 x 2 inch
$557
Desert signe LIII (SG244)
Sylvie Guyomard
Sculpture - 50 x 40 x 5 cm Sculpture - 19.7 x 15.7 x 2 inch
$443
Un été outre-mer - série Les Dames de la côte
Françoise Lucq
Painting - 40 x 60 x 1 cm Painting - 15.7 x 23.6 x 0.4 inch
$1,114
Right from the source
Manuela Karin Knaut
Painting - 125 x 125 x 4 cm Painting - 49.2 x 49.2 x 1.6 inch
$5,873
Louis Vitton n°6
Parscha Mirghawameddin
Painting - 146 x 114 x 2 cm Painting - 57.5 x 44.9 x 0.8 inch
$1,705
Pauvre Amour 2
Agathe David
Fine Art Drawings - 100 x 70 x 0.5 cm Fine Art Drawings - 39.4 x 27.6 x 0.2 inch
$1,421
Close Touching God
Mattia Novello
Sculpture - 71.1 x 71.1 x 5.1 cm Sculpture - 28 x 28 x 2 inch
$8,000
Women
Kirill Postovit
Fine Art Drawings - 20.5 x 25 x 0.1 cm Fine Art Drawings - 8.1 x 9.8 x 0 inch
$3,058
Planet Earth
Michael Grine
Painting - 60.5 x 121.4 x 5.4 cm Painting - 23.8 x 47.8 x 2.12 inch
$1,500
Élément jaune (PM15)
Palmi Marzaroli
Painting - 49 x 63 x 0.2 cm Painting - 19.3 x 24.8 x 0.1 inch
$2,615
HEtresencompagnie #09
Corinne Bresson
Photography - 40 x 40 x 4 cm Photography - 15.7 x 15.7 x 1.6 inch
$512
Cheveux de comète
Anne-Marie Mary
Painting - 90 x 90 x 2.5 cm Painting - 35.4 x 35.4 x 1 inch
$2,819
Among the White Birch
Lee Passarella
Painting - 45.7 x 45.7 x 6.4 cm Painting - 18 x 18 x 2.5 inch
$875
Have you seen the moon tonight? 3
Laura Spring
Painting - 50.8 x 50.8 x 2 cm Painting - 20 x 20 x 0.8 inch
$600
Restaurant place des Vosges
Jeff Bayley
Painting - 80 x 80 x 2 cm Painting - 31.5 x 31.5 x 0.8 inch
$682
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!