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The golden butterfly
Alla Grande
Sculpture - 100 x 100 x 5 cm Sculpture - 39.4 x 39.4 x 2 inch
$2,553
Magnolia branch
Evgeny Chernyakovsky
Painting - 90 x 70 x 2 cm Painting - 35.4 x 27.6 x 0.8 inch
$2,000
Peinture 11-2023-67
Alain Bécanne
Painting - 120 x 120 x 4.5 cm Painting - 47.2 x 47.2 x 1.8 inch
$1,332
Marine abstraite 2024-51
Fred Boutet
Painting - 40 x 120 x 4 cm Painting - 15.7 x 47.2 x 1.6 inch
$777
Lingering in mid air
Alvaro Petritoli
Painting - 56 x 76 x 3 cm Painting - 22 x 29.9 x 1.2 inch
$1,621
Filtered amber light
Alvaro Petritoli
Painting - 83 x 61 x 3 cm Painting - 32.7 x 24 x 1.2 inch
$1,942
Seven mists descending
Alvaro Petritoli
Painting - 76 x 56 x 3 cm Painting - 29.9 x 22 x 1.2 inch
$1,942
Moon rising Midsummer
Alvaro Petritoli
Painting - 78 x 67 x 3 cm Painting - 30.7 x 26.4 x 1.2 inch
$1,942
Lumière du matin... (Esprit Voile)
Olivier Messas
Painting - 50 x 40 x 2 cm Painting - 19.7 x 15.7 x 0.8 inch
$1,110
Flights of Fancy2
Newel Hunter
Painting - 101.6 x 76.2 x 3.8 cm Painting - 40 x 30 x 1.5 inch
$4,500
Fourmis
Éric Dabancourt
Fine Art Drawings - 40 x 40 x 2 cm Fine Art Drawings - 15.7 x 15.7 x 0.8 inch
$599
Baby Doll n148, CH Tribute
Rachel Bergeret
Painting - 72 x 42 x 2 cm Painting - 28.3 x 16.5 x 0.8 inch
$3,829
Kimono II
Raynald Najosky
Photography - 40 x 30 x 1 cm Photography - 15.7 x 11.8 x 0.4 inch
$777 $699
Kiss me, I love you
Patrick Cornée
Painting - 80 x 80 x 3 cm Painting - 31.5 x 31.5 x 1.2 inch
$3,552
Snoopy drank to much Dom Pérignon champagne
Patrick Cornée
Painting - 80 x 80 x 3 cm Painting - 31.5 x 31.5 x 1.2 inch
$3,552
Brigitte Bardot "Kitchen"
Peter Donkersloot
Painting - 150 x 120 x 3 cm Painting - 59.1 x 47.2 x 1.2 inch
$9,435
Le temps des fleurs
Virginia Benedicto
Painting - 73 x 60 x 2 cm Painting - 28.7 x 23.6 x 0.8 inch
$1,443
Série Les Mignons - Sculpture Raku animal marin
Naïg Oulhen dite AbeRaku
Sculpture - 15 x 25 x 9 cm Sculpture - 5.9 x 9.8 x 3.5 inch
$488
Philippe Zdar, (chalk)
Xavier Veilhan
Print - 31.9 x 11.5 x 7.4 cm Print - 12.6 x 4.5 x 2.9 inch
$3,663
Contemporary portrait "The Inhabitants"
Nataliya Bagatskaya
Painting - 80 x 50 x 1.5 cm Painting - 31.5 x 19.7 x 0.6 inch
$1,443
Neue Kammern Enfilade I. From the Neue Kammern Enfilades series
Celia Rogge
Photography - 152.4 x 101.6 x 0.3 cm Photography - 60 x 40 x 0.1 inch
$8,250
Neue Kammern Potsdam VI. From the Neue Kammern Enfilades series
Celia Rogge
Photography - 152.4 x 101.6 x 0.3 cm Photography - 60 x 40 x 0.1 inch
$8,250
Neue Kammern Enfilade IV. From the Neue Kammern Enfilades series
Celia Rogge
Photography - 101.6 x 152.4 x 0.3 cm Photography - 40 x 60 x 0.1 inch
$8,250
La cage où le silence fût brisé par la voix d'un homme au bord des larmes
Sandra Chevrier
Painting - 80 x 60 x 2 cm Painting - 31.5 x 23.6 x 0.8 inch
$11,655
Marine abstraite 2024-48
Fred Boutet
Painting - 50 x 100 x 4 cm Painting - 19.7 x 39.4 x 1.6 inch
$666
Never Never Give Up!
Diederik Van Apple
Sculpture - 33 x 16 x 15 cm Sculpture - 13 x 6.3 x 5.9 inch
$771
Follow Your Heart
Diederik Van Apple
Sculpture - 33 x 16 x 15 cm Sculpture - 13 x 6.3 x 5.9 inch
$771
Autum birch trees
Alvaro Petritoli
Painting - 72 x 40 x 3 cm Painting - 28.3 x 15.7 x 1.2 inch
$1,288
Mont Fuji
Raynald Najosky
Photography - 30 x 40 x 1 cm Photography - 11.8 x 15.7 x 0.4 inch
$777 $699
Porsche 911 930 Turbo
Angélique Dufossé
Painting - 50 x 100 x 2 cm Painting - 19.7 x 39.4 x 0.8 inch
$1,765
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!