Hilma af Klint

Hilma af Klint was a Swedish painter and mystic. Her works are seen as some of the earliest major abstract pieces in Western art. Much of what she made came before the first purely abstract works of Kandinsky, Malevich, and Mondrian. She was part of a circle called "The Five," a group of women who followed Theosophy and believed they could reach "High Masters" through séances. Her paintings often look like diagrams, serving as visual expressions of complicated spiritual concepts.

Born in 1862, she was the fourth child of a naval commander and his wife. The family spent summers at their manor on an island in Lake Mälaren, where nature became a lasting inspiration. She later lived on a nearby island. Af Klint had strong interests in math and botany, as well as a talent for visual art. After moving to Stockholm, she studied portrait and landscape painting at a technical school. At twenty, she entered the Royal Academy of Fine Arts, where she trained in portraiture, botanical drawing, and landscapes. She graduated with honors and received a studio in a central Stockholm building that was a cultural hub. There, she earned recognition for her conventional landscapes and portraits, which paid her bills, while her abstract work remained a private pursuit.

Her spiritual side began to develop around 1880, after her younger sister died. She had started experimenting with spiritual investigation in 1879. Her interest in abstraction and symbolism grew from her involvement with spiritism, popular at the time. She was drawn to the Theosophy of Helena Blavatsky and the philosophy of Christian Rosenkreuz. In 1908, she met Rudolf Steiner, who introduced her to his theories on art, which seemed to influence her later paintings. She met him again in 1920 at the Goetheanum in Switzerland, and spent long periods there between 1921 and 1930. Her work fits into the broader modernist search for new forms in art, spirituality, politics, and science. Other artists like Kandinsky, Mondrian, and Malevich were also inspired by the Theosophical Society. Af Klint felt her abstract work and its meaning were so ahead of their time that the world was not ready, so she instructed that it stay unseen until twenty years after her death.

At the Academy, she met Anna Cassel, the first of four women who later formed "The Five." The others were Cornelia Cederberg, Sigrid Hedman, and Mathilda Nilsson. They began as members of the Edelweiss Society, which mixed Theosophy and spiritualism. All were interested in the paranormal and held regular séances. Their meetings included prayer, meditation, a Christian sermon, and analysis of a New Testament text, followed by a séance. They recorded a new system of mystical thought in a book, presented as messages from higher spirits called the High Masters. One Master said the knowledge they offered was not of the senses or intellect, but belonged to the deepest part of one's being—the knowledge of the spirit. Through this group, af Klint made experimental automatic drawings as early as 1896, which led her to a geometric visual language for invisible forces. She explored world religions, atoms, and plants, writing extensively. She created metaphors for messages from the High Masters, who she believed used her as a conduit. She was "assigned" to paint for a "Temple," though she never understood what that meant. She felt a force guided her hand, writing that the pictures were painted directly through her, without preliminary drawings, and with great force—she had no idea what they were supposed to depict.