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American Rhapsody
Jeanne Saint-Chéron
Painting - 100 x 100 x 2 cm Painting - 39.4 x 39.4 x 0.8 inch
$3,927
We Don't Know How Water Is Blue #1
Tran Trong Vu
Painting - 254 x 101.6 x 2.5 cm Painting - 100 x 40 x 1 inch
$2,300
Un tit bout’ de nout’ berceau du peuplement - La grotte des premiers français Saint-Paul
Coryne Boyer
Fine Art Drawings - 53 x 65 x 1 cm Fine Art Drawings - 20.9 x 25.6 x 0.4 inch
$1,346
Tag 15
Darryl McCray (Cornbread)
Fine Art Drawings - 14 x 11 x 0.1 cm Fine Art Drawings - 5.5 x 4.3 x 0 inch
$196
L’univers de la persécution
Johannes Gachnang
Print - 50 x 65 x 0.05 cm Print - 19.7 x 25.6 x 0 inch
$449
Contact color relief
Aurélie Trabaud
Sculpture - 54 x 54 x 4.2 cm Sculpture - 21.3 x 21.3 x 1.7 inch
$3,590
Shogun Table Lamp
Mario Botta
Design - 60 x 30 x 30 cm Design - 23.6 x 11.8 x 11.8 inch
$3,366 $2,861
Pair of lamps in the style
Tommaso Barbi
Design - 38 x 50 x 20 cm Design - 15 x 19.7 x 7.9 inch
$853 $682
Cat
Novella Parigini
Fine Art Drawings - 67 x 47.5 x 0.1 cm Fine Art Drawings - 26.4 x 18.7 x 0 inch
$617
Into the love No.2
Stephen Rowe
Painting - 152.4 x 129.5 x 5.1 cm Painting - 60 x 51 x 2 inch
$8,750
De la serie primigenia esencia
Gustavo Díaz Sosa
Painting - 28 x 48 x 2 cm Painting - 11 x 18.9 x 0.8 inch
$2,199
Memorie e vecchi ori (heroes)
Alberto La Tassa
Painting - 160 x 230 x 3 cm Painting - 63 x 90.6 x 1.2 inch
$26,926
Porcelaine de Rêve - Bleu N°7
Anany
Design - 0.3 x 18.5 x 18.5 cm Design - 0.1 x 7.3 x 7.3 inch
$269
Marlow's thoughts (in his dark heart)
Rhett Boland
Fine Art Drawings - 29 x 21 x 1 cm Fine Art Drawings - 11.4 x 8.3 x 0.4 inch
$2,649
Homeland
Anet Duncan
Fine Art Drawings - 26 x 21 x 7 cm Fine Art Drawings - 10.2 x 8.3 x 2.8 inch
$763
Kashia 2 - 1/1
Delphine Lepoutre
Sculpture - 86 x 13 x 13 cm Sculpture - 33.9 x 5.1 x 5.1 inch
$1,122
Television Antenna
Domenico Purificato
Painting - 35.6 x 25.3 x 0.1 cm Painting - 14 x 10 x 0 inch
$561
Metsuki, expresar atraves de la mirada
Suca
Painting - 40 x 70 x 3 cm Painting - 15.7 x 27.6 x 1.2 inch
$1,739
Raccordement
Mehdi Cibille Le MoDuLe De ZeeR
Painting - 120 x 120 x 2 cm Painting - 47.2 x 47.2 x 0.8 inch
$7,851
Can you keep a secret
Marisol Evora
Painting - 100 x 100 x 3.7 cm Painting - 39.4 x 39.4 x 1.5 inch
$13,637
Mother and Child
Irene Pereyra
Fine Art Drawings - 30.5 x 23 x 0.2 cm Fine Art Drawings - 12 x 9.1 x 0.1 inch
$337
Wrapped series untitled #2
Robert Mack
Photography - 86.4 x 58.4 x 2.5 cm Photography - 34 x 23 x 1 inch
$4,250
Long live the queen
Alexandar Inchovski
Painting - 87 x 58 x 3 cm Painting - 34.3 x 22.8 x 1.2 inch
$2,244
Attraction
Vincent Bargis M7
Painting - 100.3 x 100.3 x 2.5 cm Painting - 39.5 x 39.5 x 1 inch
$6,300
Dessert Plate (lot de 6 assiettes en céramique Royal Limoges sérigraphiée)
Claude Closky
Design - 26 x 1 x 1 cm Design - 10.2 x 0.4 x 0.4 inch
$707
Monster
Albert Decaris
Fine Art Drawings - 33 x 25 x 0.1 cm Fine Art Drawings - 13 x 9.8 x 0 inch
$651
Daily Life
Kate Wilczynski
Fine Art Drawings - 40 x 50 x 0.1 cm Fine Art Drawings - 15.7 x 19.7 x 0 inch
$673
''Gunina''en Givenchy, Paris le 5 Août 1955 Elle Magazine
Georges Dambier
Photography - 74 x 68 x 2 cm Photography - 29.1 x 26.8 x 0.8 inch
$3,927
Women
Fausto delle Chiaie
Fine Art Drawings - 49 x 59.6 x 0.3 cm Fine Art Drawings - 19.3 x 23.5 x 0.1 inch
$561
Serie Papelitos de Color
Sara Stewart Brown
Painting - 94 x 152 x 1 cm Painting - 37 x 59.8 x 0.4 inch
$9,334
Der Beobachter #2
Joe Köstlinger
Painting - 120 x 80 x 2 cm Painting - 47.2 x 31.5 x 0.8 inch
$2,244
Pair of Strips Armchairs
Cini Boeri Boeri
Design - 90 x 90 x 62 cm Design - 35.4 x 35.4 x 24.4 inch
Sold
Hollypop 2
Iva Ivanova
Fine Art Drawings - 29 x 21 x 0.1 cm Fine Art Drawings - 11.4 x 8.3 x 0 inch
$280 $252
Graciela Iturbide, Des oiseaux - Édition limitée
Graciela Iturbide
Print - 25 x 19.5 cm Print - 9.8 x 7.7 inch
$673
Les marches du Louvre #01
Hannaka
Photography - 32 x 26 x 1 cm Photography - 12.6 x 10.2 x 0.4 inch
$662
One white paperclip
Warren Dennis
Sculpture - 30.5 x 10.3 x 10.3 cm Sculpture - 12 x 4.1 x 4.1 inch
$2,132
Vintage 1094 floor lamp
Gino Sarfatti
Design - 160 x 50 x 25 cm Design - 63 x 19.7 x 9.8 inch
$5,161
1 - La descente de Persephone
Mita Vostok
Photography - 60 x 40 x 1 cm Photography - 23.6 x 15.7 x 0.4 inch
$898
Looking for balance
Danielle Mano Bella
Photography - 40 x 60 x 0.3 cm Photography - 15.7 x 23.6 x 0.1 inch
$1,683
Murano Glass Plates
Aureliano Toso
Design - 29.5 x 23 x 53 cm Design - 11.6 x 9.1 x 20.9 inch
$785 $707
81 Blue on White
Anita Agnieszka Edvinsson
Painting - 76 x 57 x 1 cm Painting - 29.9 x 22.4 x 0.4 inch
$3,254
Poetry of nature, Ref. 1507
Nasser Azizi
Painting - 110 x 120 x 3 cm Painting - 43.3 x 47.2 x 1.2 inch
$6,731
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!