White
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Au-delà des mers
Georges Laporte
Fine Art Drawings - 33 x 23 cm Fine Art Drawings - 13 x 9.1 inch
$396
Energy Self-sufficient House 5 b
Lucio Forte
Print - 30 x 30 x 0.1 cm Print - 11.8 x 11.8 x 0 inch
$111
Gestures (Stranger than Paradise)
Stefanie Schneider
Photography - 207 x 155 x 0.3 cm Photography - 81.5 x 61 x 0.1 inch
$29,403
La Rêve De L'arbre Aux Oiseaux
Maria Teresa Bertina
Painting - 100 x 60 cm Painting - 39.4 x 23.6 inch
$4,524
Tribal fish !!!
SP
Fine Art Drawings - 29.7 x 42 x 0.1 cm Fine Art Drawings - 11.7 x 16.5 x 0 inch
$124
If Anyone Would like To jump on The Page
Gabrielle Rul
Painting - 23 x 31 cm Painting - 9.1 x 12.2 inch
$452
Onde vibratoire blanche 2
Jean-François Contremoulin
Painting - 18 x 24 x 2 cm Painting - 7.1 x 9.4 x 0.8 inch
$271
Very difficult ease.
Igor Shulman
Painting - 79.8 x 119.9 x 5.1 cm Painting - 31.4 x 47.2 x 2 inch
$4,200
Portrait with gardenia
Elena Podmarkova
Painting - 91.4 x 61 x 2 cm Painting - 36 x 24 x 0.8 inch
$2,750
Sheelagh Na Gig #2
Elizabeth Hefty-Khoury
Painting - 7.5 x 7.5 x 1 cm Painting - 3 x 3 x 0.4 inch
$325
Surimpression du Touareg
Françoise Spiekermeier
Photography - 90 x 60 cm Photography - 35.4 x 23.6 inch
$814
Eggs and Oranges With Vase
Zhang Wei Guang
Painting - 50 x 60 x 2 cm Painting - 19.7 x 23.6 x 0.8 inch
$12,214
The flow of the love
Michaela Skuhrava
Painting - 100 x 150 x 3 cm Painting - 39.4 x 59.1 x 1.2 inch
$6,634
Sunny St Louis
Alain Le Garsmeur
Photography - 30 x 40 x 0.1 cm Photography - 11.8 x 15.7 x 0 inch
$515
Savannah Façade
Alain Le Garsmeur
Photography - 25 x 30 x 0.1 cm Photography - 9.8 x 11.8 x 0 inch
$385
Santa Maria Smoke
Alain Le Garsmeur
Photography - 25 x 30 x 0.1 cm Photography - 9.8 x 11.8 x 0 inch
$385
San Francisco Escapes
Alain Le Garsmeur
Photography - 30 x 25 x 0.1 cm Photography - 11.8 x 9.8 x 0 inch
$385
Horse Paddock - Limited Edition Archival Pigment Print
Alain Le Garsmeur
Photography - 30 x 40 x 0.1 cm Photography - 11.8 x 15.7 x 0 inch
$515
Muse aux cheveux blancs
Geoffrey Callènes
Painting - 65 x 54 x 1 cm Painting - 25.6 x 21.3 x 0.4 inch
$1,923
Oranges in a Bowl
Zhang Wei Guang
Painting - 27.5 x 37.5 x 1 cm Painting - 10.8 x 14.8 x 0.4 inch
$8,595
Eggs and Newspaper
Zhang Wei Guang
Painting - 35 x 50 x 1 cm Painting - 13.8 x 19.7 x 0.4 inch
$8,142
Touareg Mystique
Geoffrey Callènes
Painting - 80 x 60 x 0.5 cm Painting - 31.5 x 23.6 x 0.2 inch
$2,149
Train Fantôme
Geoffrey Callènes
Painting - 80 x 100 x 0.5 cm Painting - 31.5 x 39.4 x 0.2 inch
$2,036
Madone en Extase
Geoffrey Callènes
Painting - 65 x 54 x 0.5 cm Painting - 25.6 x 21.3 x 0.2 inch
$2,036
Bambin dans les bras, Côte d’Ivoire
Louis Toffoli
Print - 76 x 56 x 0.2 cm Print - 29.9 x 22 x 0.1 inch
$452
Bâches bleues devant la Salute
Célestin Messaggio
Painting - 81 x 100 x 2 cm Painting - 31.9 x 39.4 x 0.8 inch
$7,803
Peak Mid Winter #9
Jonathan Moore
Photography - 40 x 60 x 0.1 cm Photography - 15.7 x 23.6 x 0 inch
$993
Vision blanche
Yves Bordes Lapeyre
Photography - 60 x 90 x 0.5 cm Photography - 23.6 x 35.4 x 0.2 inch
$1,006
Préparatifs la veille de fête
Eugenia Jaeger
Painting - 140 x 100 x 2 cm Painting - 55.1 x 39.4 x 0.8 inch
$3,958
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!