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Les livres de poche
Sophie Dumont
Painting - 40 x 40 x 2 cm Painting - 15.7 x 15.7 x 0.8 inch
$1,120
Le désenchantement
Emmanuelle Vroelant
Painting - 80 x 160 x 5 cm Painting - 31.5 x 63 x 2 inch
$9,053
Coin Coin Colors
Bernard Saint-Maxent
Painting - 29 x 24 x 3 cm Painting - 11.4 x 9.4 x 1.2 inch
$328
Burroughs 100 years
Shepard Fairey (Obey)
Print - 61 x 46 x 0.2 cm Print - 24 x 18.1 x 0.1 inch
$905
Horizon Carbone (7)
Christophe Ruiz
Painting - 40 x 120 x 2 cm Painting - 15.7 x 47.2 x 0.8 inch
$1,018
All you need is love
Patricia Gadisseur
Painting - 120 x 100 x 2.5 cm Painting - 47.2 x 39.4 x 1 inch
$1,245
Untitled, 332_0476
Jurek Wajdowicz
Photography - 55.8 x 39.3 x 0.1 cm Photography - 22 x 15.5 x 0 inch
$1,597
The first white snow
Nataliia Krykun
Painting - 40 x 40 x 2 cm Painting - 15.7 x 15.7 x 0.8 inch
$905 $815
The coral crown forbidden production (6)
Julien Delagrange
Painting - 40 x 30 x 0.1 cm Painting - 15.7 x 11.8 x 0 inch
$2,037
Scarification II
Jean-Michel Zazzi
Painting - 120 x 80 x 4 cm Painting - 47.2 x 31.5 x 1.6 inch
$1,697
Scarification I
Jean-Michel Zazzi
Painting - 120 x 80 x 4 cm Painting - 47.2 x 31.5 x 1.6 inch
$1,697
L'homme et la mer
Isabelle Fournet
Painting - 146 x 97 x 2 cm Painting - 57.5 x 38.2 x 0.8 inch
$2,818
Seems Heavy, There's Help
Kpe Innocent
Painting - 100 x 100 x 5 cm Painting - 39.4 x 39.4 x 2 inch
$6,790
Luxury Art Toffee - Playing Cards (Black)
Ad Van Hassel
Sculpture - 33 x 10 x 10 cm Sculpture - 13 x 3.9 x 3.9 inch
$255
La imagen distorsionada de Dios, de la serie Homo vs Sapiens
Gustavo Díaz Sosa
Painting - 45 x 60 x 4 cm Painting - 17.7 x 23.6 x 1.6 inch
$2,603
Dans L'Intimité d'une Planète
Laurence Gallien
Photography - 70 x 105 x 0.1 cm Photography - 27.6 x 41.3 x 0 inch
$1,811
L'Astre qui Sommeille
Laurence Gallien
Photography - 80 x 120 x 0.1 cm Photography - 31.5 x 47.2 x 0 inch
$2,150
Abstract Spring Awakening
Vlas Ayvazyan
Painting - 50 x 60 x 2 cm Painting - 19.7 x 23.6 x 0.8 inch
$600
Sculpture pot - Resilence
Poonam Choudhary
Sculpture - 26.7 x 20.3 x 7.6 cm Sculpture - 10.5 x 8 x 3 inch
$1,000
La barquette
Pedro Viana Parente
Painting - 100 x 73 x 2.5 cm Painting - 39.4 x 28.7 x 1 inch
$1,811
First Day, First Dead
Parimah Avani
Fine Art Drawings - 64 x 15 x 0.2 cm Fine Art Drawings - 25.2 x 5.9 x 0.1 inch
$566
First Couple, First Moon
Parimah Avani
Fine Art Drawings - 64 x 15 x 0.2 cm Fine Art Drawings - 25.2 x 5.9 x 0.1 inch
$679
White Flowers on Window Sill
Michael Gorban
Painting - 102 x 127 x 25 cm Painting - 40.2 x 50 x 9.8 inch
$6,620
La délicatesse du printemps
Jeong Min Lee
Painting - 97 x 130 x 2 cm Painting - 38.2 x 51.2 x 0.8 inch
$1,245
White blossom on green (stretched)
Nadine Antoniuk
Painting - 80 x 50 x 2 cm Painting - 31.5 x 19.7 x 0.8 inch
$634
Transformation - Pixi kk 62 2a-3-02 x
Hein Gravenhorst
Print - 30 x 30 x 0.1 cm Print - 11.8 x 11.8 x 0 inch
$1,584
Transformation - Pixi kk 62 2a-3-01 x
Hein Gravenhorst
Print - 30 x 30 x 0.1 cm Print - 11.8 x 11.8 x 0 inch
$1,584
Love turtle pink
Diederik Van Apple
Sculpture - 25 x 25 x 40 cm Sculpture - 9.8 x 9.8 x 15.7 inch
$1,245
Unlimited (Unknown Power)
Yuiko Ráyka
Painting - 60 x 60 x 2.5 cm Painting - 23.6 x 23.6 x 1 inch
$3,169
Bledard! Je suis nouveau à l'ecole
Enfant Précoce / Francis Essoua Kalu
Painting - 130 x 89 x 2 cm Painting - 51.2 x 35 x 0.8 inch
$10,185
Desert Goddess
Silvia Calmejane
Painting - 140 x 100 x 1 cm Painting - 55.1 x 39.4 x 0.4 inch
$8,629
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!