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olivia-erskine-grad701 · 2 years

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Reflection/Strategy Statement

Overall, this project has been an incredible learning experience for myself both as a designer and as an individual. Starting the year with the task of designing ‘Typographic Binaries’, I was challenged to look at things a different way, and consider the impact that societal binaries impact graphic design. This felt like a very fitting topic for me, as someone who puts a lot of thought into unpacking social constructs. Although I’ve always been aware of binaries within society - especially those that affect the LGBTQ+ community, such as gender and sexuality - learning about binaries within design was something I hadn’t considered, and this project has opened my mind to a new way of thinking about them. I really enjoyed designing this article, looking at how we can break down different binaries within design to create a more unified visual language. I learnt a lot about the history of typography and colour, and how social binaries influence these aspects of design. I also learnt how the connotations of visual binaries can be harmful, and reference negative binaries in society. I enjoyed thinking about my typographic choices for their meaning rather than their visual appeal. The process of making the spreads was largely just trial and error, adjusting one element at a time until I was happy with it. I discussed in more depth the reasoning behind my design choices on the post with the final outcome.

The creation of the Potluck Publication was probably the area I could have most improved in. I sort of put it on the back burner while I was trying to establish my publication concept, and in the end I think it shows that I put less time in than the other elements. In saying this, I do think the design communicates what I intended it to - this is discussed more on the post with the final outcome. It was a valuable learning experience as I became confident in using the riso printer, learned how to make a hardcover, and how to hand bind a book. Even though it’s by no means the strongest design I’ve made, I’m still happy to have a keepsake of mine and everyone's projects to hang on to in physical form. I think because I spent almost 10 hours binding it, it feels like a very personal project.

The group Pataka project was one of the highlights of this semester. My group and I all shared such similar values and beliefs surrounding the topic of Gender and Identity that we would just sit and have really in depth and insightful conversations. We talked about everything from feminism, to sexuality, gender and equality. I think that the shared resources and knowledge gathered from this really guided me forward in my thinking about the editorial. This shared conversation about social and personal issues is not something that happens often within our degree, as we’re so focused on the design side of things, but I have come to realise just how valuable it is.

Lastly, my final publication. If I were to describe the process of making this publication start to finish it would be treacherous. I started off very passionate about the idea of unpacking the correlation between queerness and creativity, and I had big ambitions to build my publication around this. However, after my in class presentation and being told that the topic was too broad and messy (which it was), I had to go back to the drawing board. Refining my idea took a long time - lots of reading, research, planning and restarting. The progression of my idea started with ‘queer creativity’, to ‘queer creatives through history’, to ‘queer creatives in an art movement’, to ‘one queer creative - Hilma af Klint’. It was a very natural progression as I narrowed the topic down further and further each time. By this stage, I was a fair way behind where I needed to be. I had intended on catching up during the semester break, but ended up losing this whole chunk of time to wisdom teeth removal surgery. I then scrambled to catch up, and sort of just started designing spreads without having finalised my design system. As I am a very visual person with a messy and non-linear creative process, I tend to build designs through a process of trial and error, testing out how different things look and feel on a page. This did not work well for me in this assignment, as you can tell from the fact I pretty much restarted my book once or twice - both content and design system wise. In the end, I think this all needed to happen as a part of the process, or I wouldn’t have arrived at the final outcome that I did.

Learning about Hilma af Klint’s abstract and esoteric understandings of the world through her paintings was another highlight of this project. Choosing a topic that I am so intrigued by was definitely a good decision, as I very happily read almost every piece of information about af Klint that I could find. I feel like I have an array of knowledge about her life and works now, which I hope translates through the book. Every design choice I made was influenced by some form of her and her work. The plain black and white system allows her paintings to stand out and speak for themselves. The italic font reflects the organic forms of her work and the traditional style of the time period in which she painted them. The contrast between the italic font and the capital sans serif letterforms reflects the contrast between feminine and masculine in her work - carrying my knowledge of typographic binaries through this project too. The bold text is intended to ensure the book has agency and presence. After her work being hidden and rejected for so long, I wanted to communicate that it is now here to stay and it deserves to be seen and heard. Breaking the margins reflects her breaking the rules with her art. The white cover and chapter titles, followed by the bold colourful paintings, reflect this idea that her work was hidden and is now on display.

There are a number of things that I have learnt from during this project that I will do differently going forward. The first is planning - planning the content, design system, planning my time and time management, printing process, etc. It is not a strength of mine but if I had been better at it during this project I probably could have improved the final outcome. I would have liked to have branched out of my comfort zone more within the design systems, as I seem to be falling into the habit of black and white minimal designs recently. In saying this, I do think that this was the best design decision for the content I was curating. In Typographic Binaries it reflected the black and white binary, while in The Unseen World it acted as a vessel to showcase the paintings.

In conclusion, I am proud of what I have been able to create this semester. I have had almost every obstacle thrown my way - from Covid, to surgery, weeks of illness, and family loss - and had to make up for a lot of missed class time. There were many moments where I thought I wouldn’t be able to complete the project at all, so to have done everything to the best of my abilities is something I am very content with.

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olivia-erskine-grad701 · 2 years

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Updated & improved manuscript:

Foreword:

As both a spiritualist medium and follower, af Klint manifested her esoteric understanding of nature, gender, the cosmos and human consciousness in the form of abstract art. Her work explores the affinity between science, spiritualism, religion and the occult, opening the mind of the world to the interrelationships of the unseen. ‘Hilma af Klint: The Unseen World’ displays five select series from her largest project, the Paintings for The Temple: Primordial Chaos, The Tree of Knowledge, The Ten Largest, The Swan, and The Altarpiece. Within these works the true genius of af Klint transpires as we follow her on a journey from the atom to the galaxy. At first glance, af Klint’s artwork holds intrigue and agency; an almost other-worldly captivation. It is not until we begin to read and comprehend her visual language that the true messages of her work can be received. In ‘Hilma af Klint: The Unseen World’, her colour, form and images are explored and decoded. On page 72, you can find a detailed glossary of af Klint’s visual symbols and their corresponding meanings.

At the time of its creation, the world was not yet ready to receive the messages that the Paintings for The Temple hold. Under af Klint’s instruction, the works were hidden from the world for many years after her death. Now, decades later, it seems the world is ready.

Paintings for the temple:

During a séance in the year 1906, a spirit called Amaliel allegedly commissioned Hilma af Klint to make Paintings for The Temple. The artist documented the assignment in her notebook and wrote that it was the largest work she was to perform in her life. This series of artworks, called The Paintings for the Temple, was created between 1906 and 1915. It features 193 paintings that are divided into various subgroups. The idea of the Paintings for The Temple was to depict the monistic nature of the world; that everything in the world is one.

The spiritual quality of the series is apparent in Hilma af Klint’s description of its making: “The pictures were painted directly through me, without any preliminary drawings, and with great force. I had no idea what the paintings were supposed to depict; nevertheless I worked swiftly and surely, without changing a single brush stroke.”

Introduction:

A female painter, a pioneer of abstract art, a spiritualist and a dedicated believer in the occult: Swedish artist Hilma af Klint was nothing if not before her time. To the outside world, she spent her life creating a series of unexciting portrait and landscape paintings which challenged neither her own talent, nor the academy, working out of a Stockholm studio next door to the Swedish Association of Painters. By night, however, she conducted séances as part of a secret assembly of five woman painters who named themselves 'The Five,' taking commissions from a spirit she named Amaliel, one of her so-called ‘High Masters’, and seeking oneness of the soul in the colour green. Perhaps most extraordinarily of all, Af Klint experimented in, and ultimately founded, the geometric and colourful abstraction that would be attributed to male founders Wassily Kandinsky, Piet Mondrian and Kazimir Malevich many years later.

Recognising that the world was not ready for her belief in the occult, she worked in complete isolation from the European avant garde, and included a clause in her will that stipulated that not a single item from her 1,000 piece estate be shown until 20 years after her death. She was correct in her estimation: although Af Klint wasn’t alone in her fascination with spiritualism – her male contemporaries, too, made work influenced by the occult – when her sprawling archive was offered to the Moderna Museet in 1970 it was dismissed as trivial. Her work was not to be shown publicly until 1986, and even now, never-before-seen pieces are going on display.

After almost 100 years of being overlooked by the establishment, Af Klint’s work was finally shown to the masses in 1986 – a tender and fluid, emotional and poignant code of colours, shapes, symbols and forms. Now The Paintings for the Temple comes to London in a new exhibition at London’s Serpentine Gallery. “Hilma Af Klint is a pioneer of abstract art and the earliest artist we have ever exhibited at the Serpentine,” Serpentine directors Julia Peyton-Jones and Hans Ulrich Obrist say. The show includes a number of never-before-seen recently restored works, and forms an englightening and admiring homage to the late artist, whose work has been too long overlooked.

Look at the paintings of Swedish artist Hilma af Klint, and you will feel the power of her vision. Through vivid compositions of shapes and symbols, she presented philosophical and spiritual concepts in physical form on canvas—a visual manifestation of her thinking for us to see and reflect upon.

Af Klint’s unprecedented artistic expression was greatly inspired by her devotion to spiritualism, a movement popular in the late 1800s and early 1900s whose followers believed in our ability to communicate with otherworldly beings. Her involvement in spiritualism was not unusual among artists and others in the creative realm in Europe and America at the turn of the century. This was a period of massive change: With industrialization, people moved from the countryside to the towns, cutting off their social networks. Discoveries within the natural sciences, such as radio waves and X-rays, made people realize that there are aspects of our world that we cannot perceive with our five senses. In this atmosphere of upheaval and uncertainty, a variety of religious and philosophical movements took shape, as people from all levels of society were searching for something new to hold on to.

Af Klint, too, was a seeker—a serious and critical one. Throughout her lifetime, she took part in a number of different, yet often related, religious and philosophical movements, each of which had its own impact on her thinking and work. In 1879, at the age of 17, she participated in Spiritist séances, wherein participants attempted to make contact with the dead, and she became a member of the Spiritist Literature Association. The following year, her younger sister, Hermina, passed away, and af Klint tried to communicate with her deceased sibling. Soon after, the artist left the Spiritist movement, feeling it provided a mere shortcut for people to gain information that they were not yet ready to receive. The movement that af Klint soon joined, however, shaped her and her work for years to come: Theosophy.

Established in 1875 in New York by Helena Blavatsky together with Colonel H.S. Olcott, Theosophy was later headquartered in Adyar, south of Madras in India. According to the Theosophical movement, human beings have seven states of consciousness. The Theosophical movement believes in reincarnation, and maintains that the entire universe (from the atom to the galaxy) is a single unit—thus the “Macrocosmos” is equal with the “Microcosmos.” All of these concepts are expressed in af Klint’s abstract paintings.

In 1887, Blavatsky established the European Federation of the Theosophical Society in London, and the Federation was introduced in Sweden in 1889, when af Klint joined. The Theosophical Society, Adyar was also established in Sweden, in 1895, and af Klint joined that organization and was a member until 1915. She participated in the Theosophical World Congress held in Stockholm in June 1913.

Af Klint was also influenced by the Rosicrucians, a fact that is well recorded in her notebooks. Her abstract paintings are sprinkled with various Rosicrucian symbols, and she habitually wore a necklace with a plain silver cross, in the middle of which was engraved a rose within a circle.

In 1896, af Klint also joined the Edelweiss Society, a Swedish association with an ecumenical base established in 1890 by Huldine Beamish. Af Klint left that group a year later, feeling it did not give her the feedback she desired for her spiritual development. Instead, she and four other women who were members of the Edelweiss Society established their own spiritualist group called “The Five.”

The Five met regularly between 1896 and 1907. Each of their gatherings started with a prayer, meditation, and a sermon in front of an altar with a triangle and a cross with a central rose, a Rosicrucian symbol. They continued with analysis of a New Testament text, followed by a séance during which they made contact with spirits and spiritual leaders. The spirits were individually identified by names, while the spiritual leaders were simply referred to as “The High Ones.” The spiritual contacts were verbally expressed by the group’s medium, as well as by automatic scriptures and drawings. The Five recorded these sessions in a series of notebooks.

After The Five had met for several years, the spirits started making recurrent references to an important mission lying ahead. One spirit predicted the creation of future paintings, while another foresaw the building of a temple. He indicated that af Klint would be requested to make the necessary architectural drawings for this temple.

On January 1, 1906, a spirit that the group referred to as Amaliel gave af Klint a monumental task: She was to create the artwork for the temple’s interior—The Paintings for the Temple. “Amaliel offered me a work and I answered immediately Yes,” wrote af Klint in her notebooks. “This was the large work, that I was to perform in my life.” Af Klint went on to paint 111 paintings during the period from November 1906 to April 1908—one painting every fifth day.

In July 1908, soon after she had completed this remarkable time of creative productivity, af Klint met the Austrian philosopher Rudolf Steiner, then the leader of the Theosophical Society in Germany. Steiner is best remembered now for Anthroposophy, the movement that he initiated in 1913, when he broke away from the Theosophists, and the Waldorf system of education that he founded based on Anthroposophical thought. Af Klint sought Steiner’s response to her work, turning to him as one of the most prominent spiritual leaders of the time. However, Steiner did not understand the message of her work, and questioned her way of painting and her mediumistic role.

This was a great disappointment to af Klint, who at the time was exhausted in the wake of creating the first portion of The Paintings for the Temple. Steiner’s response to her paintings seems to have greatly affected the artist, as she ceased painting in abstract form until 1912. During the intervening four years, she cared for her mother, who was blind and in ill health. Af Klint also spent this time painting portraits and studying Western philosophers, and she read Blavatsky’s Theosophical two-volume work The Secret Doctrine, in which the author reconciles ancient Eastern wisdom with modern science. Af Klint finally resumed her artistic work, and in 1915 she completed The Paintings for the Temple, which constitute 193 paintings in all.

Despite Steiner’s reaction to her paintings, af Klint became a member of the Anthroposophical Society in 1920, and primarily studied Anthroposophical teachings for many years after 1922. She stepped away from her artistic creation for a time in 1921 and intensively studied Goethe’s Colour Theory, which Steiner had edited. In 1922 she resumed painting again, influenced by Goethe’s writing, in the “floating colors” style that was also espoused by Anthroposophy—a style she employed for the rest of her life. The Anthroposophical Society had established a center in Dornach, Switzerland, and she conducted research in their archives there with the aim of deciphering the message inherent in her works. She did not find what she sought, and in 1930, she finally broke with the Anthroposophical Society. From that time until her death in 1944, she never returned to Dornach.

Af Klint’s art was designed to convey transcendental messages to humanity. One may say that af Klint’s abstract paintings are firmly based on Rosicrucianism, Theosophy, and Christianity—and also on concepts familiar from Buddhism, whose tenets were woven into the Theosophist teachings. While she was rooted in movements born out of the turbulent turn of the century, in many ways her practice speaks directly to the spiritual and philosophical perspectives of today.

Primordial Chaos

The paintings of the group Primordial Chaos were the first of Hilma af Klint’s extensive series The Paintings for the Temple. They were also her first examples of abstract art. The group consists of 26 small paintings. They all depict the origins of the world and the Theosophical idea that everything was one at the beginning but was fragmented into dualistic forces. According to this theory, the purpose of life is to reunite the fragmented and polar forces.

The shape of a snail or spiral visible in some of the pictures of this group was used by af Klint to illustrate evolution or development. While the color blue represents the female in af Klint’s work, the color yellow illustrates masculinity. The use of these predominant colors can therefore be interpreted as the depiction of the two opposite forces, such as spirit and matter, or male and female. Hilma af Klint said that the group Primordial Chaos was created under the guidance of one of her spiritual leaders.

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The tree of knowledge

The Tree of Knowledge series demonstrates af Klint’s living communion with both spiritual and natural worlds, and her adherence to successive higher planes: ether, astral, and mental. Building on a familiar archetypal form of esoteric ideas, the tree of good and evil, af Klint’s Tree of Knowledge series unites both science and occultism, practice and theory, male and female, and the interconnection of various planes. Historically, the tree of life or tree of knowledge plays a crucial role in the imagery of the Old Testament and Judeo-Christianity. Since the time of Pythagoras, the tree of knowledge has been adapted and appropriated in order to visualize meaning in both spatial and allegorical contexts. Af Klint juxtaposes both metaphor with diagram and science with occultism, which would have been fundamental elements during this time in history.

Esoteric Representations of Nature

Af Klint no doubt believed in the entrancing power of nature, its theological dimension and the capacity to understand it through a sacred and scientific lens, precisely because her notion of nature included a holistic understanding of the existence of matter in both biological and cosmological form. Unlike today, science and the occult were not necessarily distinguished separately in the early twentieth century. The coexistence of seemingly disparate beliefs of the day demonstrate the period’s willingness to create the space necessary to articulate and theorize the union between scientific thinking, esotericism, and visual arts. Even though af Klint was not under full spiritual guidance during the production of theTree of Knowledge series, these works systematically visualize the access she had to higher knowledge and the spiritual lives of plants via the etheric plane, the plane, according to Theosophists, that exists just above the physical. In developing these works, af Klint sought to not only penetrate and understand the natural world, but also develop a diagrammatic language that alludes to her interest in the didactic nature of this material. af Klint’s work addresses both her solidarity with the planet and her interest in the emotional lives of plants. These works exist in-between the body and the earth, a space cultural ecologist David Abram describes as the location where the mind arises and dwells.

Beginning with an inclusion of some of her signature symbols and colors, such as the tree of life, birds, heart, spirals, and the chalice known in Christian symbology as the grail signifying our higher self, af Klint charts the evolution of humankind from earthly to higher spheres. Through her particular color theory, yellow symbolizing the energy of the male and blue the female, af Klint’s biological language depicted in the first drawing of the series shows these colors in an upward motion circling around two birds, one black and one white.

The streams of intertwining colors branching out from the heart at the center of what might be understood as the base chakra or four petals of the lotus flower. In relation to the chakras, the heart could be understood as the vitality globule or the ultimate physical atom, where atom refers not to a chemical but what Leadbeater defines as “the basic type of matter in the highest sub-plane of each plane of nature.” The force from the atom of the heart pushes the energy upward in a two passage system indicative of the upward flow and traditional two way passage of the kundalinī, the energy at the base of the spine. This energy in Indian texts is often referred to as “she”, where kundalinī in some forms of yoga is centered in the “chamber in the heart.” Leadbeater argues further that “if we imagine ourselves to be looking down into the bell of a flower of the convolvulus type, we shall get the idea of the general appearance of the chakra. The stalk of the flower in each springs from a point in the spine.

As the birds ascend, they draw closer and become a mirror image as their positions shift from right to left and left to right until they merge completely. After the silence of their echo, the figures coalesce into a unified whole represented by a single, much smaller, white dove, the color af Klint used as a symbol of purity. Her interest in the spiral is thus signified here both literally and metaphorically as seen in the curvature circling of lines whilst it’s possible to also imagine the motion of the birds as they become one. The continued intertwining and union of representational and non mimetic forms, physical and psychical worlds, emerge at the top of the tree with a chalice or higher self that emits twelve rays that extend both in upward and downward directions. Considering af Klint’s interest in overcoming duality, the rays may symbolize the twelve signs of the zodiac, known to be divided into a light and dark two-part system.

As the Tree of Knowledge progresses in both its form and narrative, methodical shifts and transmutations begin to take place (No. 2). Similar in composition, the streams shift from yellow and blue to black and white where they seem to be led by the birds in flight rather than the streams encasing them as seen in the first drawing. The translucent canopy of the tree loses some of its foliage and the multicolored lemniscates also known as the mathematical symbol representing infinity decrease in number. Rather than the birds outlined in black or depicted as purely white, the bird is painted subtle shades of grey perhaps indicating the slow merge from two to one. The chalice too shifts in color from its original gold to white.

In No. 3 and No. 4, the chalice changes positions entirely and moves to the center of the diagram where it joins the heart, which is no longer depicted spiraling inward on itself, but colored a solid shade of red, a color indicative of passion or physical/spiritual love. The base of the tree becomes a helix or induction coil which pours energy in an upward motion toward the center where the heart and chalice mingle, and the birds both black descend encased by the circular motion of energy that might suggest their link to the astral and etheric bodies.

Both the roots and position of the lotus flowers rest upon two horizontal lines. This might be perceived as the three-tier system of successive higher planes: ether, astral, and mental. The lotus flowers are more pronounced and play an important role in the process of transformation. Leadbeater discusses the lotus in his text on the chakras. He states, “The mouth of the flower-like bell of the chakra is on the surface of the etheric body, the stem of the trumpet-like blossom always springs from a centre in the spinal cord.” The way he describes the role of the lotus is mirrored in images three and four of af Klint’s series.

Although closely related in composition, No. 11 includes a white cross at the bottom positioned in the middle of the helix and in-between the two birds. The white cross is a prominent symbol in Rosicrucianism, but normally has a rose in the center. There are several meanings associated with the cross, one in which it represents the human body, and in Theosophy, the cross is a symbol of procreation.

In a shift of symmetry, af Klint incorporates the square with a flower in the shape of an xcross and a traditional crucifix in the last few compositions (No. 5, No. 6). The birds positioned at the bottom center are connected and delicately fold their form around the white crucifix. The helix has been removed from image five and replaced again with colored streams ascending from the heart. This time, the pink stream connects to an offset square with a flower forming an x. It’s possible the number of pedals indicate a primary force that radiates out into the body much like the spokes of a chakra wheel. In yogic practice, numbers and letters symbolize “the total creative power or life-force coming into the body.” Af Klint’s didactic illustrations link the tree of life with religious, philosophical, and esoteric traditions, in addition to occult science. The body is represented by a series of spirals, geometries, and flora until she eventually depicts the figures of two angels, and in the last image the figures of a man and woman ascend from the spiral that flows from the floral square.

The Ten Largest

Instead of being guided by the high masters, like when working on her previous group Primordial Chaos, af Klint’s creative process became more independent during the making of The Ten Largest. She said: “It was not the case that I was to blindly obey the High Lords of the mysteries but that I was to imagine that they were always standing by my side.”

Paintings in the group The Ten Largest represent different stages of human life by illustrating childhood, youth, maturity, and old age. They also illustrate how we are connected to the universe. Hilma af Klint displayed different states of human consciousness and development by painting bright geometrical shapes. The artist explained the works in her notebook: “Ten paradisiacally beautiful paintings were to be executed; the paintings were to be in colors that would be educational and they would reveal my feelings to me in an economical way…. It was the meaning of the leaders to give the world a glimpse of the system of four parts in the life of man.”

Paintings in the group The Ten Largest show various symbols that are characteristic of af Klint’s art and her involvement with spiritual ideas. The number seven, for example, refers to the artist’s knowledge of Theosophical teachings and is a recurring theme in The Ten Largest. In this series, the symbol of the spiral or snail is a representation of the physical as well as the psychological human development. The almond shape that occurs when two circles intersect, like in the painting No. 2, Childhood, symbolizes a development resulting in completion and unity. The shape is a symbol from ancient times and is also called vesica piscis.

The Swan Series

Since the Swan series falls after af Klint’s break, it has been studied as an example of her evolved method. This deliberate development in technique was commented on by the artist in her notebooks, in specific reference to the Swan and the Dove series. This was a group in which, according to af Klint herself, she has “achieved such great spiritual maturity that she is able to work entirely according to her own intuition.” This adds a level of intentionality to the imagery that she selects. The Swan series itself is significant for depicting arguably the most extreme level of abstraction within all of Paintings for the Temple, especially in No. 16 and No. 17, which are targets of pure color. The close association to af Klint’s own thinking and the high level of abstraction makes the Swan series especially interesting to explore in terms of the possible influences on her symbolism, color, and form.

In Swan series, Hilma af Klint combines carefully chosen representational imagery with ground-breaking abstract composition. The character of the swan holds a great depth of meaning drawn from a constellation of sources, all of which agree on the etheric qualities of the bird. Af Klint’s own glossary directly relates the swan to the act of resurrection, providing a foundation for the symbol. Not only is the swan a go-between for the physical and astral realms, it also plays a part at the beginning of the world, by laying the egg of the earth, and at the end of the world, by singing its infamous song. When the imagery turns abstract, af Klint’s consistent and purposeful choices of color and geometry allow her to successfully visualize an invisible process. The middle paintings of this series reveal a narrative of the atom moving through the etheric plane. Af Klint’s atoms are cubic and vibratory, then glowing as they shift through multiple planes of consciousness. Af Klint also uses dualities of color—blue/yellow and black/white—to frame the atom’s story, echoing Goethe’s ideas of light and shadow, the colors lightening as the atom nears the end of its etheric journey. However, she adds another color duality in the Swan series: pink and red. The pink and red polarity examines the relationship between earthly and sacred love. These two colors accompany the atom throughout its travels in the etheric plane, eventually ousting the carnal red for the spiritual pink.

The Symbolism of the Swan in af Klint’s Swan series

In the opening scene of The Swan Series, the first painting shows two swans opposing each other. A white swan on a black background occupies the top half of the square canvas, the bottom half white, with a black swan. The two swans almost mirror each other, with their wings spread. Their necks curve in to meet, beaks touching near the center of the canvas. In No. 2, the birds clash.The background division of black and white stays constant, but the birds cross the border into each other’s territory. Their heads bend away from each other and necks make contact, the violence of which is underscored by bursts of pink color. The white swan’s wing tip is now tinged with pink, while the black swan’s wing drips dramatic red blood. In No. 3, the white swan holds the black swan and the background shifts, still black and white, but the centerline has been dismantled. Rays of white and pink project out from each bird’s heart and their heads rest side by side, as do their feet: blue and yellow corresponding to feminine and masculine. In No. 4, the composition is divided into quadrants. The white swan flies in the upper left quadrant atop a pink background surrounded by white light and the black swan is cast down to the bottom right quadrant, surrounded by black. One of the white swan’s wing tips is tinged black, and the black swan has begun to turn white, and each now has one blue foot, and one yellow. Finally, in No. 5, the white swan flies toward the right edge of the painting in the upper right quadrant, with one pink wing and one brown. It is pushed upward by a white spiral. In contrast, the black swan falls face first to the bottom left quadrant, surrounded by brown and grey smoke and an orange and red spray of blood follows it down the left side of the canvas. This permeation then shifts radically into an atomic and subatomic exploration of the bird, then into the bird as pure light, and/or as pure color in paintings No 6. through No. 23. In the last canvas, af Klint brings back the two swans, whole and intertwined in their naturalistic form.

In No. 24, the last canvas of Swan series, af Klint returns to the representational swan forms that she left behind earlier in the series. The two swans intertwine with wings extended over a canvas divided in quadrants. The top left is a light pink, the color of selfless love, and the top right is white, the holiest color. The colors arch gracefully, like swan necks, touching in the middle to form an atomic whorl. After the long journey through the etheric plane, Klint's atom is still spinning.

This visual exploration of atomic structure and light could be a loose interpretation of the process of fermentation, after which, in the last canvas, the swan emerges, having successfully become “master of the lower nature,” or master of the physical plane, and thus now able to enter the astral plane. The Swan and Dove series are the second to last in the trajectory of Paintings for the Temple, and thus this act of rising upwards and emerging in a new realm is complicit with the story of ascension and unification that af Klint seeks to tell through these works.

The Altar Pieces

The Altarpieces are the last works of Hilma af Klint’s series The Paintings for the Temple. This group consists of three large paintings and was supposed to be placed in the altar room of the temple. Af Klint described the architecture of the temple in one of her notebooks as a round building with three stories, a spiral staircase, and a four-story tower with the altar room at the end of the staircase. The artist also wrote that the temple would exude a certain power and calm. Choosing to place this group in such an important room in a temple shows the significance of her Altarpieces.

The meaning behind the Altarpieces can be found in the Theosophical theory of spiritual evolution, which is characterized by a movement running in two directions. While the triangle in No. 1 of the Altarpieces shows the ascension from the physical world to the spiritual realm, the painting with the triangle pointing downwards illustrates the descending from divinity to the material world. A wide golden circle in the last painting is an esoteric symbol of the universe.

Conclusion

As we find ourselves tangled and held softly in a complex web of perhaps mere feeble attempts at translating or decoding af Klint’s language, we must consider what these images might teach us about the world and ourselves. As such, it’s important that art history see beyond form, recognize the challenges present in canonical parameters, and reassess relationships to language and the realm of the spiritual. Her work has the power to inaugurate a time of its own, not to be contained to what was or what’s to come, but what is happening right now. Af Klint gives us permission to go further, to react, and begin a new form of history that requires imagination and presence in the understanding of both science and esotericism. This work can then tell us something about her perception of the world, and our own experiences within it as we continue to understand human experience, emotions, and behaviours in the spirit of Hilma af Klint.

Symbolism Glossary

Hilma af Klint kept hundreds of notebooks throughout her life, and among these various journals is a meticulous self-made glossary, which hints at possible narratives to her work, defines the symbols and words she often writes on the canvas itself, and assigns meaning to various colors. It’s important to note that the same subject often had multiple meanings, which are presented with equal weight in list format.

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