White
Save your search and find it in your favorites
Saved search
Your search is accessible from the favorites tab > My favorite searches
Unsaved search
A problem occurred
After performance
Karen Axikyan
Sculpture - 16 x 40 x 10 cm Sculpture - 6.3 x 15.7 x 3.9 inch
$2,999
Painting research 4
Hongyu Zhang
Painting - 120 x 80 x 1 cm Painting - 47.2 x 31.5 x 0.4 inch
$5,328
Fishing for absurdity
Palina Kasino
Painting - 50 x 70 x 0.5 cm Painting - 19.7 x 27.6 x 0.2 inch
$2,594
Régate à l'horizon... II (Paysage abstrait 2022)
Olivier Messas
Painting - 30 x 90 x 2 cm Painting - 11.8 x 35.4 x 0.8 inch
$1,110
The Path of the Squares
Desa Vlahutin
Sculpture - 50 x 40 x 20 cm Sculpture - 19.7 x 15.7 x 7.9 inch
$4,467
Scrooge McDuck - Louis Vuitton III
Artash Hakobyan
Painting - 60 x 60 x 2 cm Painting - 23.6 x 23.6 x 0.8 inch
$2,273
Untitled - flower marble
Ilja Freer
Painting - 100 x 80 x 2 cm Painting - 39.4 x 31.5 x 0.8 inch
$2,231
The power of light 2
Nándor Bozsóki
Painting - 60 x 40 x 2 cm Painting - 23.6 x 15.7 x 0.8 inch
$2,853
Don't blame me
Elisabeth Laplante
Painting - 81 x 100 x 3 cm Painting - 31.9 x 39.4 x 1.2 inch
$4,629
White Top 37
Anna Celie Nastasia Meyer
Sculpture - 23 x 16 x 11 cm Sculpture - 9.1 x 6.3 x 4.3 inch
$2,586
White Top 39, Black Bottom 21
Anna Celie Nastasia Meyer
Sculpture - 56 x 16 x 15 cm Sculpture - 22 x 6.3 x 5.9 inch
$4,984
Black Bottom 21, Red Bottom 10, White Half Dot
Anna Celie Nastasia Meyer
Sculpture - 51 x 27 x 22 cm Sculpture - 20.1 x 10.6 x 8.7 inch
$5,250
Shallow deepness
Helina Menning
Painting - 100 x 100 x 2.5 cm Painting - 39.4 x 39.4 x 1 inch
$3,741
Green Pulses Numero 3
Edouard Tournier
Painting - 100 x 73 x 2 cm Painting - 39.4 x 28.7 x 0.8 inch
$3,563
Combate entre Kirk y Spock
Juan González Iglesias
Painting - 89.6 x 65 x 0.1 cm Painting - 35.3 x 25.6 x 0 inch
$3,741
I love this mess
Alison Aplin Artist
Painting - 76 x 91 x 4 cm Painting - 29.9 x 35.8 x 1.6 inch
$3,208
Loppy the lopsided vase
Alison Aplin Artist
Painting - 100 x 100 x 4 cm Painting - 39.4 x 39.4 x 1.6 inch
$3,652
Horizon Metronome
Richard Dubure
Painting - 130 x 162 x 3 cm Painting - 51.2 x 63.8 x 1.2 inch
$5,994
Together In Electric Dreams
Kelly Jenkins
Painting - 46 x 46 x 4 cm Painting - 18.1 x 18.1 x 1.6 inch
$2,702
Rio Carnaval Shape Sublime
Anthony Horth
Photography - 61 x 50.8 x 0.3 cm Photography - 24 x 20 x 0.1 inch
$780
I will always be here for you
Elena Raceala
Photography - 61 x 91.4 x 0.3 cm Photography - 24 x 36 x 0.1 inch
$1,054
Women
Kirill Postovit
Fine Art Drawings - 20.5 x 25 x 0.1 cm Fine Art Drawings - 8.1 x 9.8 x 0 inch
$2,986
Shreds of Memory V
Jakub Pasierkiewicz
Photography - 100 x 70 x 0.3 cm Photography - 39.4 x 27.6 x 0.1 inch
$1,287
Shreds of Memory II
Jakub Pasierkiewicz
Photography - 70 x 100 x 0.3 cm Photography - 27.6 x 39.4 x 0.1 inch
$1,287
Trapezist
Eugene Berman
Fine Art Drawings - 23.7 x 31.8 x 0.4 cm Fine Art Drawings - 9.3 x 12.5 x 0.2 inch
$1,221
Où est Charlie ? IV
Tanguy Mendrisse
Photography - 30 x 24 x 0.1 cm Photography - 11.8 x 9.4 x 0 inch
$139
Paris Notre Dame Cathédrale de Paris
Bruno Fournier
Photography - 24 x 18 x 1 cm Photography - 9.4 x 7.1 x 0.4 inch
$888
Paris bateaux mouche I
Bruno Fournier
Photography - 18 x 24 x 1 cm Photography - 7.1 x 9.4 x 0.4 inch
$888
Paris bateaux mouches
Bruno Fournier
Photography - 18 x 24 x 1 cm Photography - 7.1 x 9.4 x 0.4 inch
$888
White eagle. A keen eye.
Lilya Volskaya
Painting - 40 x 25 x 1.5 cm Painting - 15.7 x 9.8 x 0.6 inch
$888
Swirling
Eduarda Tavares
Fine Art Drawings - 59.4 x 42 x 1 cm Fine Art Drawings - 23.4 x 16.5 x 0.4 inch
$1,443
Imagined destinations, Winter (L’hiver)
Taisia Korotkova
Painting - 56 x 76 x 0.2 cm Painting - 22 x 29.9 x 0.1 inch
$1,665
Homage to Jackson Pollock (white)
Ad Van Hassel
Sculpture - 33 x 10 x 10 cm Sculpture - 13 x 3.9 x 3.9 inch
$250
Feeling
Jean-Humbert Savoldelli
Painting - 100 x 100 x 2 cm Painting - 39.4 x 39.4 x 0.8 inch
$3,996
C'est la rentrée
Alexandra Battezzati
Painting - 100 x 100 x 3 cm Painting - 39.4 x 39.4 x 1.2 inch
$4,329
Petite ruine au printemps en Grèce
Danielle Launay
Painting - 80 x 100 x 3 cm Painting - 31.5 x 39.4 x 1.2 inch
$2,220
Forêt flamboyante
Danielle Launay
Painting - 80 x 100 x 3 cm Painting - 31.5 x 39.4 x 1.2 inch
$2,220
Mon jardin de nuit
Danielle Launay
Painting - 100 x 80 x 3 cm Painting - 39.4 x 31.5 x 1.2 inch
$2,220
Amour incandescent - Lyrisme abstrait
Sylvie Adaoust
Painting - 81 x 100 x 3 cm Painting - 31.9 x 39.4 x 1.2 inch
$2,098
Behind the Door
Salome Khubashvili
Painting - 96 x 147 x 2 cm Painting - 37.8 x 57.9 x 0.8 inch
$1,665
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!