Hilma af Klint and Symbolism: The Spiritual Origins of Abstract Art

This article is part of my series on Hilma af Klint and Symbolism. Read the first post: Hilma af Klint and Symbolism: The Spiritual Origins of Abstract Art. Read the second post: Hilma af Klint – Symbolism II: The Roots of Vision

Unlike yin-yang, the symbol of harmony between two opposites,  the picture shown here is lacking  obvious harmony. The left half, reminiscent of  sun and water or blue sky, does not captivate my eye.

By contrast, the dark half circle on the right, with its light perimeter makes. me think of a view through the Kuiper belt into the distant universe – 95% of the universe matter, dark energy and dark matter, that we cannot perceive with our senses – and the vast number of neurons in our brains that we not use.

The next image shows the painting with its proper  orientation: The Swan, No 17. 1915; 150 x 150 cm by Hilma af Klint, a Swedish Painter (1862 – 1944). 

Other af Klint paintings, currently on exhibit at the Guggenheim Museum, New York City, also have a ‘soft’ right and a ‘more solid’ left half. Why does viewing the painting in its proper orientation make me feel uncomfortable, while I love looking at it horizontally rotated?

Hilma af Klint studied at the Royal Academy of the Fine Arts in Stockholm. During her life, she  was known as painter of landscapes, portraits and botanical art.  

Privately, inspired by mysticism, she began painting abstract art in 1906 -a novel approach for Europe and Russia at the time, preceding the abstract work of artists such as Kandisky, Mondrian, and Malevich. Abstraction had long been practiced in other parts of the world such as by Aboriginal Australian artist Yirawala, whose ancient  bark works uses dotting, cross-hatching, and patterned forms  to expres spiritual and ancestral landscapes.

Over the next two years, af Klint painted large organic forms and mandalas in which blue, yellow and pink/red stood for female, male and sensual/ spiritual love, respectively.  But in 1908, she stopped painting for four years. 

After her relationship with Dr. Helleday ended, she chose to remain single. She cared for her blind mother and gave up—or possibly changed—her studio. During these quiet years she met Rudolf Steiner, whose emerging Anthroposophical ideas diverged from traditional Theosophy. Steiner urged her to keep her abstract paintings out of public view for fifty years.

From 1912 – 1915,  af Klint returned to abstract art, now in a more authoritative, geometric style. She created “Paintings for the Temple” a task she felt was commissioned by a spirit whom she called Amaliel. Other strongly geometric works include the transcendent swan series, among them the painting discussed at the beginning of this post.

Subsequently af Klint dedicated herself more fully to studying theosophy and anthroposophy.

Later, after reading Goethe’s color theory,  af Klint painted with water-color, wet-on-wet, allowing the colors to flow into one another, very different from her earlier botanical paintings.

At the beginning of the 20th century esoteric spiritualism was also  practiced by Kandinsky (1866-1944), Malevich (1879-1935), and Mondrian (1872-1944), other painters of abstract art.

Emotional responses to colors vary widely – different artist imbue colors with their own symbolic meanings. For example, Hilma af Klint and Franz Marc (1880-1916) both associated blue with a masculine spiritual principle and yellow with the feminine principle, reflecting their personal visions of nature’s duality.

Standing before Hilma af Klint’s paintings today, I feel how her quiet, mystical visions still unsettle and expand our ways of seeing. Long before her male contemporaries were recognized for abstraction, she mapped out spiritual dimensions, opposites, and cosmic forces that reach beyong what we perceive. Perhaps the discomfort I feel in viewing the Swan it its ‘proper’ orientation reminds me that harmony is sometimes hidden, or waiting to be discovered from another angle. Like her colors flowing and colliding, her work invites us to trust that what lies unseen – in the universe, in ourselves – may yet reveal new forms of balance.

Hilma af Klint’s life and work are well documented by the Hilma af Klint Foundation which maintains a full archive of her paintings and writings. 

For readers interested in how her early botanical training and visual discipline shaped her abstract language, I explore these ideas further in my follow-up post, Hilma af Klint – Symbolism II: The Roots of Vision.

You can also explore af Klint’s botanical work in the insightful article “When Hilma af Klint Found the Soul in Plants,” which highlights her Nature Studies as spiritual reflections on the natural world.