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Etel - série Paysage de bord de mer de Bretagne
Jacqueline Clermont
Painting - 30 x 60 x 2 cm Painting - 11.8 x 23.6 x 0.8 inch
$387
The Castelloland Installation. 34 digital photographs on brilliant paper,
Paloma Castello
Photography - 43.2 x 101.6 x 0.3 cm Photography - 17 x 40 x 0.1 inch
$5,000
L'esprit incisif
Emmanuelle Vroelant
Painting - 80 x 80 x 3 cm Painting - 31.5 x 31.5 x 1.2 inch
$4,092
Hommage à Picasso et à Fernand Léger (noir et blanc)
Erró
Print - 57 x 81 x 1 cm Print - 22.4 x 31.9 x 0.4 inch
$1,023
Oceani Mentali n°6
Luca Izzo
Photography - 70 x 50 x 0.4 cm Photography - 27.6 x 19.7 x 0.2 inch
$398
Oceani Mentali n°3
Luca Izzo
Photography - 50 x 70 x 0.4 cm Photography - 19.7 x 27.6 x 0.2 inch
$398
Mountain lake
Alisa Onipchenko-Cherniakovska
Painting - 120 x 100 x 3 cm Painting - 47.2 x 39.4 x 1.2 inch
$3,000
Couple at sea
Alisa Onipchenko-Cherniakovska
Painting - 80 x 90 x 2 cm Painting - 31.5 x 35.4 x 0.8 inch
$2,500
In the rays of the winter sun
Alisa Onipchenko-Cherniakovska
Painting - 100 x 130 x 3 cm Painting - 39.4 x 51.2 x 1.2 inch
$3,500
Warped reality - Conceptual science art collection
Anastasia Vasilyeva
Painting - 130 x 150 x 3 cm Painting - 51.2 x 59.1 x 1.2 inch
$2,842
Mes petits bonheurs B
Aude Herlédan
Painting - 50 x 40 x 2 cm Painting - 19.7 x 15.7 x 0.8 inch
$6,821
Urban structure 2
Alessandra Bisi
Painting - 120 x 80 x 2 cm Painting - 47.2 x 31.5 x 0.8 inch
$2,671
Tea time, Sweet Home series
Olha Vlasova
Painting - 49.5 x 29.5 x 2 cm Painting - 19.5 x 11.6 x 0.8 inch
$512
Stop wars, d'après Banksy
Patrick Cornée
Painting - 50 x 50 x 3 cm Painting - 19.7 x 19.7 x 1.2 inch
$1,364
Une touche de modernité
Eric Munsch
Painting - 73 x 60 x 2 cm Painting - 28.7 x 23.6 x 0.8 inch
$1,194
Personajes en blanco y negro
Enrique Pichardo
Painting - 50 x 70 x 1 cm Painting - 19.7 x 27.6 x 0.4 inch
$688
All Things Begin and End in Eternity
Carrie Graber
Print - 101.6 x 38.1 cm Print - 40 x 15 inch
$1,125
Couleurs et formes du monde - Gabriel, architecte de couleurs
Thomas Jeunet
Painting - 146 x 96 x 3.5 cm Painting - 57.5 x 37.8 x 1.4 inch
$3,979
Let's go hiking
Katharina Hormel
Painting - 100 x 70 x 3 cm Painting - 39.4 x 27.6 x 1.2 inch
$1,364
Contemporary portrait "Cat Country"
Nataliya Bagatskaya
Painting - 90 x 55 x 1.8 cm Painting - 35.4 x 21.7 x 0.7 inch
$2,262
Elegance unfolding
Marieta Martirosyan
Painting - 80 x 120 x 2 cm Painting - 31.5 x 47.2 x 0.8 inch
$999
Drawing 427
Sumit Mehndiratta
Fine Art Drawings - 41 x 58 x 1 cm Fine Art Drawings - 16.1 x 22.8 x 0.4 inch
$682
Drawing 426
Sumit Mehndiratta
Fine Art Drawings - 58 x 41 x 1 cm Fine Art Drawings - 22.8 x 16.1 x 0.4 inch
$682
Composition No. 385
Sumit Mehndiratta
Fine Art Drawings - 65 x 46 x 1 cm Fine Art Drawings - 25.6 x 18.1 x 0.4 inch
$853
Composition No. 323
Sumit Mehndiratta
Painting - 30.5 x 30.5 x 0.1 cm Painting - 12 x 12 x 0 inch
$796
Drawing 335
Sumit Mehndiratta
Fine Art Drawings - 76.2 x 56 x 0.02 cm Fine Art Drawings - 30 x 22 x 0 inch
$796
Composition No.252
Sumit Mehndiratta
Painting - 63 x 41 x 0.1 cm Painting - 24.8 x 16.1 x 0 inch
$568
No regret
Cynthia Coulombe-Bégin
Painting - 121.9 x 121.9 x 3.8 cm Painting - 48 x 48 x 1.5 inch
$3,750
Santorini Magic
Sokratis Evgenidis
Painting - 80 x 80 x 3 cm Painting - 31.5 x 31.5 x 1.2 inch
$6,252
Greeting from : another adventure in human error
Mr Popart
Fine Art Drawings - 6.5 x 15 x 0.1 cm Fine Art Drawings - 2.6 x 5.9 x 0 inch
$136
Soft abstraction VI
Tamara Bakhshinyan
Painting - 100 x 150 x 3.5 cm Painting - 39.4 x 59.1 x 1.4 inch
$2,956
Aquellos armarios tinosos
Salvador Dali
Print - 23.5 x 17 x 0.2 cm Print - 9.3 x 6.7 x 0.1 inch
$1,307
L'aventurière
Christiane Simon-Roques
Painting - 100 x 73 x 2 cm Painting - 39.4 x 28.7 x 0.8 inch
$1,591
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!