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La mauvaise rencontre
Laurent Proneur
Painting - 182.9 x 152.4 x 5.1 cm Painting - 72 x 60 x 2 inch
$50,100
Sans titre (tea time)
Christos Kalfas
Fine Art Drawings - 24 x 24 x 0.2 cm Fine Art Drawings - 9.4 x 9.4 x 0.1 inch
$841
L'onde sonore envahit l'atelier du peintre
Jean Le Gac
Print - 76 x 56 cm Print - 29.9 x 22 inch
$617
The Unseen but Always Present (1))
Alejandra Leon
Photography - 50 x 70 x 0.3 cm Photography - 19.7 x 27.6 x 0.1 inch
$1,000
The Unseen but Always Present (2)
Alejandra Leon
Photography - 50 x 70 x 0.3 cm Photography - 19.7 x 27.6 x 0.1 inch
$1,000
Habitación 1
Alejandra Leon
Photography - 50 x 70 x 0.3 cm Photography - 19.7 x 27.6 x 0.1 inch
$1,200
Photo de classe
Gwendoline Hausermann
Fine Art Drawings - 23 x 37 cm Fine Art Drawings - 9.1 x 14.6 inch
$729
Glisser sur les vagues de ses rêves
Didier Colomès
Painting - 25 x 35 x 1 cm Painting - 9.8 x 13.8 x 0.4 inch
$639
Le rêveur - série oiseaux
Henry Ausloos
Photography - 40 x 60 x 0.1 cm Photography - 15.7 x 23.6 x 0 inch
$808
Street in Paris 1
Shengqi Tang
Photography - 30 x 20 x 1 cm Photography - 11.8 x 7.9 x 0.4 inch
$729
Chinese Interior #19
Robert van der Hilst
Photography - 42 x 49 cm Photography - 16.5 x 19.3 inch
$2,019
Glowing Breakfast in Tillett's Garden
Alexandre Idier
Painting - 91.4 x 91.4 x 5.1 cm Painting - 36 x 36 x 2 inch
$5,497
Sketch 3
Saverio Filioli Uranio
Fine Art Drawings - 33 x 24 x 0.1 cm Fine Art Drawings - 13 x 9.4 x 0 inch
$90
Symphonie des oiseaux
Fadia Haddad
Painting - 100 x 81 x 5 cm Painting - 39.4 x 31.9 x 2 inch
$9,536
Ryla - Portrait animaux sauvages - Tigre blanc
Ezya
Painting - 80 x 60 x 2 cm Painting - 31.5 x 23.6 x 0.8 inch
$561
Stormtrooper on paper (artwork from the streets)
JP Malot
Painting - 65 x 50 x 1 cm Painting - 25.6 x 19.7 x 0.4 inch
$898
Whatever man
Fred Borghesi
Fine Art Drawings - 30 x 21 x 0.3 cm Fine Art Drawings - 11.8 x 8.3 x 0.1 inch
$3,702 $3,147
Still life with pomegrantes and dove
Tamar Nazaryan
Painting - 40 x 60 x 2 cm Painting - 15.7 x 23.6 x 0.8 inch
$600 $510
Dressing for dance
Elena Sokolova
Painting - 50 x 70.1 x 1 cm Painting - 19.7 x 27.6 x 0.4 inch
$817
Portrait du peintre
Raya Sorkine
Painting - 46 x 55 x 2 cm Painting - 18.1 x 21.7 x 0.8 inch
$10,658
Shoot the bank sur plaque métal Radio Generation
JP Malot
Painting - 85 x 100 cm Painting - 33.5 x 39.4 inch
$1,795
Nero. From The Visceral series
Magda Von Hanau
Sculpture - 45.7 x 38.1 x 27.9 cm Sculpture - 18 x 15 x 11 inch
$4,500
Tempête arctique 2
Régine Heurteur
Painting - 60 x 90 x 2 cm Painting - 23.6 x 35.4 x 0.8 inch
$1,907
De lave et d’eau 1
Régine Heurteur
Painting - 60 x 60 x 2 cm Painting - 23.6 x 23.6 x 0.8 inch
$1,346
Revenir
François-Xavier de Boissoudy
Painting - 57 x 42 x 3 cm Painting - 22.4 x 16.5 x 1.2 inch
$1,346
L'arbre de vie
Tanguy Mendrisse
Photography - 40 x 30 x 0.1 cm Photography - 15.7 x 11.8 x 0 inch
$202
Interrogation écrite
Thomas Wolfgang Baenke
Painting - 224 x 168 x 0.5 cm Painting - 88.2 x 66.1 x 0.2 inch
$6,731
Dharamshala's Lanscapes
Anaiis Lee
Photography - 50 x 70 x 0.3 cm Photography - 19.7 x 27.6 x 0.1 inch
$1,346
1 Kilomètre #5
Laure Debrosse
Photography - 50 x 100 x 1 cm Photography - 19.7 x 39.4 x 0.4 inch
$1,077
Restaurant Paris
Marco Santaniello
Painting - 61.3 x 90 x 3 cm Painting - 24.1 x 35.4 x 1.2 inch
$5,049 $4,291
Song without words 3/12
J/Y Delaunay-Israël
Painting - 100 x 100 x 3 cm Painting - 39.4 x 39.4 x 1.2 inch
$4,880
Muse écrase le tube
Jean-Pierre Ceytaire
Painting - 25 x 25 x 0.5 cm Painting - 9.8 x 9.8 x 0.2 inch
$1,313
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!