White
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Fumador hindú
José Luis Pagador Ponce
Painting - 81 x 65 x 2 cm Painting - 31.9 x 25.6 x 0.8 inch
$2,863
Attraction désastre
Céline Achour
Painting - 70 x 50 x 2 cm Painting - 27.6 x 19.7 x 0.8 inch
$1,096
Confundidos # 17
Jeffrey Davies
Painting - 91.4 x 91.4 x 3.8 cm Painting - 36 x 36 x 1.5 inch
$1,645
Mnemonic codes 001
Cristina Stefan
Painting - 63.5 x 40.6 x 0.3 cm Painting - 25 x 16 x 0.1 inch
$945
Mnemonic codes 004
Cristina Stefan
Painting - 57.2 x 76.2 x 0.3 cm Painting - 22.5 x 30 x 0.1 inch
$1,134
Ocean drops
Alexandra Petropoulou
Painting - 99.8 x 119.9 x 2 cm Painting - 39.3 x 47.2 x 0.8 inch
$1,183
Reconnecting with your inner self
Selene Art
Painting - 49.8 x 174.8 x 3.6 cm Painting - 19.6 x 68.8 x 1.4 inch
$1,285
Earth, sister and mother
Irene Raspollini
Painting - 95 x 95 x 2 cm Painting - 37.4 x 37.4 x 0.8 inch
$1,788
Snoopy, Painting, Acrylic on canvas
Christel Haag
Painting - 50.8 x 50.8 x 2.5 cm Painting - 20 x 20 x 1 inch
$820
White & blue skin no. 1
Anne Girault Bardaud
Painting - 120 x 80 x 5 cm Painting - 47.2 x 31.5 x 2 inch
$2,964
Miracles III, Painting, Acrylic on canvas
Xiaoyang Galas
Painting - 50 x 50 x 4.1 cm Painting - 19.7 x 19.7 x 1.6 inch
$1,560
Inevitable Coincidence : red
Hansol Yoon
Painting - 42 x 29 x 1 cm Painting - 16.5 x 11.4 x 0.4 inch
$1,174
Inevitable Coincidence : 130-131
Hansol Yoon
Painting - 27.7 x 20.6 x 2 cm Painting - 10.9 x 8.1 x 0.8 inch
$1,264
Doux
Yohan Storti
Fine Art Drawings - 29.7 x 41 x 0.1 cm Fine Art Drawings - 11.7 x 16.1 x 0 inch
$503
L'homme blanc qui vole
Jérôme Mesnager
Painting - 29 x 11.4 x 3 cm Painting - 11.4 x 4.5 x 1.2 inch
$1,007
Hercules in Flight
Dervis Akdemir
Sculpture - 40 x 29 x 20 cm Sculpture - 15.7 x 11.4 x 7.9 inch
$596
David in Meditation with Neon Design
Dervis Akdemir
Sculpture - 36 x 27 x 12 cm Sculpture - 14.2 x 10.6 x 4.7 inch
$755
Land Before Time 1
Laura Spring
Painting - 91.4 x 91.4 x 3.8 cm Painting - 36 x 36 x 1.5 inch
$1,050
The precious heartbeat
Julius Babilonia
Painting - 121.9 x 121.9 x 2.5 cm Painting - 48 x 48 x 1 inch
$1,776
Waterline (Indigo) I
Heidi Carlsen-Rogers
Painting - 61 x 91.4 x 4.6 cm Painting - 24 x 36 x 1.8 inch
$2,000
Brelan (blanc), aquagravure en édition originale
Eduardo Arroyo
Print - 76 x 54 x 1 cm Print - 29.9 x 21.3 x 0.4 inch
$1,118
Je t'attends
Marie-Madeleine Vitrolles
Sculpture - 46 x 19 x 12 cm Sculpture - 18.1 x 7.5 x 4.7 inch
$727
Composition noir et blanc 6
Albert Ràfols-Casamada
Print - 38.5 x 57 x 0.1 cm Print - 15.2 x 22.4 x 0 inch
$669
The Split
Korede Solaja
Fine Art Drawings - 59 x 49 x 1 cm Fine Art Drawings - 23.2 x 19.3 x 0.4 inch
$3,496
Mon loft à Brooklyn
Nelson Fabiano
Painting - 30 x 60 x 4 cm Painting - 11.8 x 23.6 x 1.6 inch
$1,342
De tornada al país de la nieve
Francesca Poza
Painting - 50 x 50 x 4 cm Painting - 19.7 x 19.7 x 1.6 inch
$1,152
Panels orange neon vintage
Ronald Hunter
Painting - 60 x 150 x 2 cm Painting - 23.6 x 59.1 x 0.8 inch
$1,117
Miami Stripes 09 11bn
Luca Artioli
Photography - 114.3 x 177.8 x 0.3 cm Photography - 45 x 70 x 0.1 inch
$5,000
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!