White
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L’univers de la persécution
Johannes Gachnang
Print - 50 x 65 x 0.05 cm Print - 19.7 x 25.6 x 0 inch
$453
Contact color relief
Aurélie Trabaud
Sculpture - 54 x 54 x 4.2 cm Sculpture - 21.3 x 21.3 x 1.7 inch
$3,621
Geometric Abstract Composition
Sante Monachesi
Print - 70 x 50 x 0.2 cm Print - 27.6 x 19.7 x 0.1 inch
$226
Into the love No.2
Stephen Rowe
Painting - 152.4 x 129.5 x 5.1 cm Painting - 60 x 51 x 2 inch
$8,750
Memorie e vecchi ori (heroes)
Alberto La Tassa
Painting - 160 x 230 x 3 cm Painting - 63 x 90.6 x 1.2 inch
$27,159
From Earth
Mario Surbone
Fine Art Drawings - 18 x 14.5 x 0.1 cm Fine Art Drawings - 7.1 x 5.7 x 0 inch
$317
La Belle Gabrielle
Véronique Clanet
Sculpture - 68 x 25 x 25 cm Sculpture - 26.8 x 9.8 x 9.8 inch
$5,658
Biagio 282 Table Lamp
Tobia Scarpa
Design - 39 x 13.5 x 39 cm Design - 15.4 x 5.3 x 15.4 inch
$7,356
Marlow's thoughts (in his dark heart)
Rhett Boland
Fine Art Drawings - 29 x 21 x 1 cm Fine Art Drawings - 11.4 x 8.3 x 0.4 inch
$2,672
Porcelaine de Rêve - Bleu N°7
Anany
Design - 0.3 x 18.5 x 18.5 cm Design - 0.1 x 7.3 x 7.3 inch
$272
Homeland
Anet Duncan
Fine Art Drawings - 26 x 21 x 7 cm Fine Art Drawings - 10.2 x 8.3 x 2.8 inch
$770
Kashia 2 - 1/1
Delphine Lepoutre
Sculpture - 86 x 13 x 13 cm Sculpture - 33.9 x 5.1 x 5.1 inch
$1,132
Metsuki, expresar atraves de la mirada
Suca
Painting - 40 x 70 x 3 cm Painting - 15.7 x 27.6 x 1.2 inch
$1,754
Raccordement
Mehdi Cibille Le MoDuLe De ZeeR
Painting - 120 x 120 x 2 cm Painting - 47.2 x 47.2 x 0.8 inch
$7,919
Can you keep a secret
Marisol Evora
Painting - 100 x 100 x 3.7 cm Painting - 39.4 x 39.4 x 1.5 inch
$13,755
Sans titre
Menachem Gueffen
Fine Art Drawings - 40 x 28 x 1 cm Fine Art Drawings - 15.7 x 11 x 0.4 inch
$656
Wrapped series untitled #2
Robert Mack
Photography - 86.4 x 58.4 x 2.5 cm Photography - 34 x 23 x 1 inch
$4,250
Long live the queen
Alexandar Inchovski
Painting - 87 x 58 x 3 cm Painting - 34.3 x 22.8 x 1.2 inch
$2,263
Set of 4 Vintage Chairs
Giancarlo Piretti
Design - 70 x 70 x 55 cm Design - 27.6 x 27.6 x 21.7 inch
$4,527
Attraction
Vincent Bargis M7
Painting - 100.3 x 100.3 x 2.5 cm Painting - 39.5 x 39.5 x 1 inch
$6,300
Dessert Plate (lot de 6 assiettes en céramique Royal Limoges sérigraphiée)
Claude Closky
Design - 26 x 1 x 1 cm Design - 10.2 x 0.4 x 0.4 inch
$713
View of Rotterdam
Ria Klaveren-Exel
Print - 46.3 x 57.5 x 0.2 cm Print - 18.2 x 22.6 x 0.1 inch
$453
''Gunina''en Givenchy, Paris le 5 Août 1955 Elle Magazine
Georges Dambier
Photography - 74 x 68 x 2 cm Photography - 29.1 x 26.8 x 0.8 inch
$3,961
Serie Papelitos de Color
Sara Stewart Brown
Painting - 94 x 152 x 1 cm Painting - 37 x 59.8 x 0.4 inch
$9,415
Ponte Garibaldi, Rome
Antonio Vangelli
Painting - 35 x 50 x 1 cm Painting - 13.8 x 19.7 x 0.4 inch
$4,300
Colors Head Caps I
TieRi Trademark
Sculpture - 27 x 27 x 2 cm Sculpture - 10.6 x 10.6 x 0.8 inch
$170
Der Beobachter #2
Joe Köstlinger
Painting - 120 x 80 x 2 cm Painting - 47.2 x 31.5 x 0.8 inch
$2,263
Graciela Iturbide, Des oiseaux - Édition limitée
Graciela Iturbide
Print - 25 x 19.5 cm Print - 9.8 x 7.7 inch
$679
One white paperclip
Warren Dennis
Sculpture - 30.5 x 10.3 x 10.3 cm Sculpture - 12 x 4.1 x 4.1 inch
$2,150
1 - La descente de Persephone
Mita Vostok
Photography - 60 x 40 x 1 cm Photography - 23.6 x 15.7 x 0.4 inch
$905
81 Blue on White
Anita Agnieszka Edvinsson
Painting - 76 x 57 x 1 cm Painting - 29.9 x 22.4 x 0.4 inch
$3,282
Poetry of nature, Ref. 1507
Nasser Azizi
Painting - 110 x 120 x 3 cm Painting - 43.3 x 47.2 x 1.2 inch
$6,790
Cerises sur étagère
Philippe Destors
Painting - 40 x 40 x 2 cm Painting - 15.7 x 15.7 x 0.8 inch
$1,460
La forêt enchantée - série Paysage imaginaire et porcelaine
Isabelle Lafargue
Painting - 91 x 91 x 4 cm Painting - 35.8 x 35.8 x 1.6 inch
$4,244
Johanna, Courrèges Haute couture, Champs-Elysées, Paris
Peter Knapp
Photography - 21.2 x 21.2 x 0.5 cm Photography - 8.3 x 8.3 x 0.2 inch
$4,074
Dessin
Wolfgang Gäfgen
Fine Art Drawings - 72 x 103 x 0.2 cm Fine Art Drawings - 28.3 x 40.6 x 0.1 inch
$2,490
Ambiance de plage
Clothilde Lasserre
Painting - 30 x 30 x 2 cm Painting - 11.8 x 11.8 x 0.8 inch
$758
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!