White
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Snowy mountain in winter
Nataliia Krykun
Painting - 50 x 40 x 2 cm Painting - 19.7 x 15.7 x 0.8 inch
$1,007
Before the storm
Serhii Cherniakovskyi
Painting - 80 x 90 x 2.5 cm Painting - 31.5 x 35.4 x 1 inch
$1,500
Street in Santorini
Serhii Cherniakovskyi
Painting - 80 x 75 x 2 cm Painting - 31.5 x 29.5 x 0.8 inch
$1,678
Cage / Sans titre
Meteo Meteo
Painting - 29.7 x 21 x 0.2 cm Painting - 11.7 x 8.3 x 0.1 inch
$129 $65
13 novembre - Libération
Karine Azoulay (1kazou)
Painting - 90 x 90 x 2 cm Painting - 35.4 x 35.4 x 0.8 inch
$1,678
Luxury Art Toffee - Playing Cards (Black)
Ad Van Hassel
Sculpture - 33 x 10 x 10 cm Sculpture - 13 x 3.9 x 3.9 inch
$252
La imagen distorsionada de Dios, de la serie Homo vs Sapiens
Gustavo Díaz Sosa
Painting - 45 x 60 x 4 cm Painting - 17.7 x 23.6 x 1.6 inch
$2,572
A Thousand Mountains
Laurence Gallien
Photography - 100 x 100 x 0.1 cm Photography - 39.4 x 39.4 x 0 inch
$2,013
Au Bord du Lac de l'Immortelle Blancheur
Laurence Gallien
Photography - 80 x 120 x 0.1 cm Photography - 31.5 x 47.2 x 0 inch
$2,125
Echo d'un Rêve
Laurence Gallien
Photography - 80 x 120 x 0.1 cm Photography - 31.5 x 47.2 x 0 inch
$2,125
Un chant sauvage
Sylvie Basteau
Painting - 120 x 120 x 2 cm Painting - 47.2 x 47.2 x 0.8 inch
$5,346
Infini
Philippe Martins
Photography - 90 x 90 x 0.5 cm Photography - 35.4 x 35.4 x 0.2 inch
$951 $904
Unlimited (Unknown Power)
Yuiko Ráyka
Painting - 60 x 60 x 2.5 cm Painting - 23.6 x 23.6 x 1 inch
$3,132 $2,975
L'Arbre du Lac
Sinden Collier
Photography - 41 x 61 x 0.1 cm Photography - 16.1 x 24 x 0 inch
$1,790
Blue again like morning
Francesca Borgo
Painting - 61 x 81 x 3.2 cm Painting - 24 x 31.9 x 1.3 inch
$1,670
Hénnissants cabrés
Adélaïde Leferme
Painting - 115 x 75 x 1 cm Painting - 45.3 x 29.5 x 0.4 inch
$2,069
The Lost Overlook
Kiritin Beyer
Photography - 51 x 76 x 0.1 cm Photography - 20.1 x 29.9 x 0 inch
$1,118
Artemisia
Marie Julou (Tina McCallan)
Painting - 60.5 x 50 x 2 cm Painting - 23.8 x 19.7 x 0.8 inch
$1,118
Critical Infrastructure Facility
Halyna Abramova
Painting - 100 x 100 x 2 cm Painting - 39.4 x 39.4 x 0.8 inch
$1,118
La barquette
Pedro Viana Parente
Painting - 100 x 73 x 2.5 cm Painting - 39.4 x 28.7 x 1 inch
$1,790
Human preservation (5)
Julien Delagrange
Fine Art Drawings - 40 x 30 x 0.1 cm Fine Art Drawings - 15.7 x 11.8 x 0 inch
$2,013
The shell (after marcel broodthaers) forbidden collage (11)
Julien Delagrange
Painting - 40 x 30 x 0.1 cm Painting - 15.7 x 11.8 x 0 inch
$2,013
Dieppe Series 2.0 / XLVI
Dorine van der Ploeg
Painting - 20 x 15 x 4 cm Painting - 7.9 x 5.9 x 1.6 inch
$503
Dieppe Series 2.0 / L
Dorine van der Ploeg
Painting - 20 x 15 x 1 cm Painting - 7.9 x 5.9 x 0.4 inch
$503
Thunder And Lightning M 1/Oil
Peter Nottrott
Painting - 120 x 85 x 4 cm Painting - 47.2 x 33.5 x 1.6 inch
$2,114
Diptych: Dream Within A Dream
Ewa Matyja
Painting - 180 x 300 x 0.1 cm Painting - 70.9 x 118.1 x 0 inch
$7,944
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!