Hilma af Klint x Funga

“The more we discover the wonders of nature, the more we become aware of ourselves.”

– Hilma af Klint, 1917

 

A few weeks ago, on a trip to London, I visited the HILMA AF KLINT & PIET MONDRIAN: FORMS OF LIFE at the Tate Modern.

I had seen a Hilma af Klint retrospective a few years ago at the Guggenheim in New York but had not remembered how very deeply connected she was to nature and her fascination surrounding higher and altered states. I couldn’t have come across a more perfect artist and show at this moment. I left the museum impacted, inspired, and passionate to share her story and art on my platform.

Below I have added a brief summary of her life and much of the text from the show in case you cannot go see it in person.

 

 

Hilma af Klint was born in Swedish to a navy family in 1862. After she graduated from the Royal Swedish Academy, she made a living as a commercial landscape and portraiture artist. Her younger sister’s death in 1880 deeply impacted her and resulted in the development of her spiritualism. 

Consequently, when the Swedish Theosophical Society was founded in Stockholm in 1889, Hilma af Klint soon became a member. Theosophy was based on the idea of the universal brotherhood of humanity without the distinction of race, creed, sex, caste, or colour. It encouraged the study of religion, philosophy, science and the investigation of the unexplained laws of nature and the powers latent in man. Theosophy was concerned with the idea that everything in the universe is interconnected. Rudolf Steiner, who was the founder of the Anthroposophical Society, also had an influence on her paintings later in her life after they had met personally in Stockholm. 

“Hilma af Klint’s transition to painting guided by spirits started to mature in her mid-thirties during séances with four other women. Calling themselves, The Five, they developed methods for receiving knowledge from the astral plane and the akashic records.”

After she died in 1944, her family kept her paintings away from the art world. In fact, af Klint stipulated that many of her works should not be shown for twenty years following her death. Only in recent years has she risen like a phoenix from the ashes and completely captured the hearts of this generation. “The Paintings for the Future show turned out to be the most successful exhibition in the history of The Guggenheim, attracting over 600,000 visitors.”

I recommend the documentary Beyond the Visible – Hilma af Klint (2019) to get a better understanding of her life and work or to watch the shorter YouTube video below.

 

 

New technologies such as the microscope, radiography, and photography challenged human perception during her career. The evidence of worlds invisible to the human eye catalyzed shifts across science, spirituality, and the arts. Rather than seeing af Klint´s abstract paintings as simply a violent rejection of natural appearances, their art-making processes are presented here as a way of thinking through nature. In their own ways, each artist created an abstract language that could express art´s interconnectivity with all life forms. Seen from today’s perspective of environmental and planetary crises, their close attention to such fragile relationships is even more relevant.

At the center of the exhibition is ´The Ether,´ inspired by the 19th-century notion of an invisible energy connecting all things. Seismic social, technological, and artistic advancements in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries encouraged many to question the nature of the universe.

 

EVOLUTIONEN 

Af Klint´s works below from 1908 represent humanity’s ascent to a higher spiritual state. She employed a colourful symbolism which recurs in her other worlds, including the spiral or snail, to represent evolution. This series demonstrates how af Klint experimented with several visual languages within a single work, from symbolism and organic forms to abstraction. The titles are based on a system she was developing, where numbers correspond to certain geometric shapes, which refer to different aspects of the world and cosmos.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The works above are WUS/ Seven-Pointed Star Series, Group VI, and The Evolutionen are part of The Paintings for the Temple, which af Klint referred to as her ´greatest commission.´ Between 1906 and 1915, af Klint created works that she believed were commissioned by her spiritual guide, Amaliel. Amaliel was one of the five guides, or ´High Masters´- beings thought to exist on a higher plane of consciousness – who communicated with af Klint and her spiritual collective, The Five, or in Swedish, ´De Fem.´

“Those granted the gift of seeing more deeply can see beyond form, and concentrate on the wondrous aspect hiding behind every form, which is called life.” – Hilma af Klint, 1906

 

METAMORPHOSIS

Af Klint sometimes depicted a plant at two stages of its life, in spring and summer – her own meditation on cyclical patterns in nature. Her interest was mainly in plants native to Nordic countries, such as cornflower and sea thrift.

 

 

 

 

 

 

THE TREE

The tree also became a focal point for her, and she spent two whole years working on The Tree of Knowledge from 1913-1915.

Hilma af Klint draws on a concept common to many mythological and religious traditions. The ´axis Mundi,´ often described as the ´world tree,´ is a form that connects every part of the universe, from microcosm to macrocosm. In Norse mythology, the Yggdrasil is an ash tree at the center of the cosmos, reaching to the heavens as its roots extend deep underground.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

NEW OLD GEOMETRIES 

 

The Swan was a popular occult symbol of unity. The visual arc towards an eventual state of reconciliation in The Swan might have been af Klint´s response to political and social upheaval. She said, ´where war has torn up plants and killed animals, there are empty spaces which could be filled with new figures if there were sufficient faith in human imagination and human capacity to develop higher forms.´

The series marked a development in af Klint´s visual language from organic tendrils, spirals, and symbolic forms to increasingly geometric shapes and planes of solid color.

“Thought defines the universe in geometrical figures.” – Hilma af Klint, 1916

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

THE FUTURE 

 

“My mission, if it succeeds, is of great significance to humankind. For I am able to describe the path of the soul from the beginning of the spectacle of life to its end.” – Hilma af Klint, 1917

The Ten Largest are part of The Paintings for The Temple, a body of works af Klint believed was commissioned by her spiritual guides. They represent the stages of life, from childhood to old age. Af Klint animates this cycle using organic motifs and abstract geometries. For example, the snail is reflected in the logarithmic spiral – a form deeply connected with processes of growth and evolution. 

Af Klint dreamed of building a temple in the form of a spiral, where her paintings could be hung together as a ´beautiful wall covering.´To ascend through the temple meant to move towards a higher state of being. Despite their large scale, af Klint worked quickly to produce The Ten Largest in a few months in 1907. She was completely overturning contemporary conventions of artmaking in terms of scale, colour and form.

Hilma af Klint used art to make laws of nature visible and believed her visual language would be better understood by generations to come. Art became her process of reflecting on universal patterns, and a way to make visible the fragile connectedness between forms of life.