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TRACING THE ABSENT

HILMA AF KLINT’S MYSTICAL LANGUAGE

Mónica Sánchez Tierraseca

ABSTRACT
The main aim of this paper is to study the mysticism of the Swedish artist Hilma
af Klint (1862–1944) in relation to her religious experience and her searching for
existential answers through contact with divine entities. Although the identity of
these figures is not clear, we are aware of their familiarity with Christian beliefs.
Thus, in this paper we attempt to approach Af Klint’s Christian, metaphysical and
anthroposophical message by analysing her notebooks. Particularly, we focus on
the symbolic aspect of one of them made between 1919 and 1920, entitled Flowers,
Mosses, and Lichens.

KEYWORDS
Abstract art. Antroposophy. Contemporary art. Hilma af Klint. Mysticism. Sym­
bolism.

DOI
https://doi.org/10.5817/CZ.MUNI.P210-9997-2021-22

The diversity of ways in which mystical experience can manifest itself makes it
difficult, and probably risky, to establish a single and exact definition of mysticism.
In this paper we use the term “mysticism” to express a spiritual phenomenon whose
nature, as Rudolf Steiner said it in the preface to the second German edition of his
book Christianity and the Mysteries of Antiquity (Das Christentum als mystische
Tatsache und die Mysterien des Altertums, 1910), “can only be apprehended if the
knowledge of that [spiritual phenomenon] springs from the sources of spiritual life
itself ” (1984, 7–8).
The title assigned to this work refers to the most astonishing aspect of Hilma af
Klint’s artwork. As Iris Müller-Westermann points out, “Hilma af Klint’s work is
based on the awareness of a spiritual dimension to our existence that was largely
 Tracing the absent  255

marginalized in an increasingly materialistic world” (2013, 33). In other words, the

Swedish artist intended to represent the plane of existence not visible to eye, ineffable,
by the combination of colors, forms, symbols, and words. Thus, “Tracing the Absent”
alludes in several ways to Af Klint’s skill in figuring her mystical knowledge of the
world.
In accordance with this observation, the main aim of this paper is to study
the characteristics of Hilma af Klint’s mystical experience by analyzing her work.
Specifically, this analysis has been carried out on her notebooks, paying special
attention to the notebook entitled Flowers, Mosses, and Lichens (Blumen, Moose,
Flechten, 1919–1920) and considering the continuous interrelation between word
and image.
Although paintings and drawings predominate in her artistic production, she
often includes words to complement the images or facilitate their comprehension.
Furthermore, in one of her creative periods she used automatic writing considering
it the most precise method of representing what the spirits communicated to her
during the trance-like state. This method of creation would be used other times in
her paintings, so we consider that both means are closely linked, being inseparable
most of the time.

A pioneer in darkness

Nowadays it is hard to find a study about Hilma af Klint (1862–1944) that does
not begin with a mention of the problem of her public recognition. The Swedish-
-born artist has become a paradigmatic figure due to the long time that her paintings
remained hidden, in the shadows, and she has also become a starting point for
research in current academic trends. As a result of these studies which mainly attempt
to equalize the female position in art history with the male one, we can now affirm
that Af Klint is known for her vast artistic production as an abstract painter, even if
this consideration has come too late. Since the end of the last century, we find the
inclusion of the Swedish artist in some art history’s books published with increasing
regularity. She is mentioned in works such as Cosmos – From Romanticism to Avant-
-garde (Clair – Cogeval – Théberge 1999), Artiste Médium (Amaru – Alleguede 2014),
or Esoterismo y arte moderno: una estética de lo irracional (Gómez 2019).
What is most striking in many of these studies is that her name does not appear
in any encyclopedia about contemporary art, nor are there any references to her in
studies of twentieth-century painting. There are two reasons for this. On one hand,
Gertrud Sandqvist emphasised in the lecture “When Spirits are guiding Your Hand”
pronounced on 23 August 2010 at the Salzburg International Summer Academy of
Fine Arts that at the beginning of the twentieth century we find a change of paradigm
 Mónica Sánchez Tierraseca  256

in the area of painting and in all the world. Until then, as Arantza Pardo says,
“academies were formed by men and thought that women only painted as a hobby
until they got married” (2017, 78).
On the other hand – and perhaps this is the most decisive reason for the artist’s fate
–, when she was almost seventy years old, she made many of her original notebooks
disappeared. It is not known what happened to them, whether she burned them,
threw them into Lake Mälaren or destroyed them sheet by sheet (Almqvist – Belfrage
2020, 21). Was it a sudden and impulsive act, or maybe one of the spiritual entities
she was contacting told her to do it? We do not know and we may never know it.
However, the event was compounded by another impediment to her work seeing the
light of day.
In parallel to making part of these creations disappear, Hilma verbally notified
her nephew and sole heir, Erik af Klint, of the prohibition to show her work until
after her death (Sarriugarte-Gómez 2019, 88), as she felt that society was not ready
to understand it. It was in 1932 when she decided to inscribe in her notebooks
the symbols “+x” and explained that “all  works that carry this sign should not be
opened until 20 years after my death” (Almqvist – Belfrage 2020, 28). As she wrote
in Letters and Words Pertaining to Works by Hilma af Klint (Symboler, Bokstäver och
Ord tillhörande Hilma af Klints målningar), a notebook in which she describes the
complex system of symbolic language she uses in her visual works, “+” represents
“superphysical thought” while “x” refers to “superphysical imagination (the symbol
of the astral world)” (Klint 1932).
Because of these circumstances, the first opportunity to see her paintings in public
was in 1986, not twenty but forty years after her death. The event took place at the
exhibition “The Spiritual in Art: Abstract Painting 1890–1985” held at the Los Angeles
County Museum of Art. However, it was at a later exhibition at the Moderna Museet
in Stockholm in 2013 and curated by Iris Müller-Westermann and her assistant Jo
Widoff that the Swedish artist was established as one of the pioneers of abstract art.
Due to the estimated dates and those that have been verified in the notebooks
collected, Hilma af Klint anticipated abstraction with her work, preceding Vassily
Kandinsky, Piet Mondrian and Kazimir Malevich, to whom this dogma has been
academically attributed. In spite of this, Jesús Díaz Bucero and María Dolores
Sánchez Pérez suggest that both Hilma’s works and those of these artists have value
as pieces of art, so that their paintings would not lose their value when Af Klint’s
appear on the scene, because the originality that gives real value to a work of art is
non-circumstantial (2015, 36).
In any case, the issues surrounding this problem have detracted attention to other
aspects that deserve the same emphasis and, therefore, many questions about the life
and work of the Swedish artist are quite complex and require an in-depth analysis
poorly studied yet.
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Hilma af Klint’a paintings

It is useful to point out a few episodes of Hilma af Klint’s life in order to understand
her work in context. Firstly, it should be mentioned that she grew up in the traditional
Christian values instilled in her home, feeling from an early age an intense attraction
to esotericism. As the grandson of Hilma af Klint’s brother, Johan af Klint, stated in
a communication, her motivation to connect with the other world began when she
was eighteen years old, and it was after the death of her sister Herminia that she tried
to “seek contact with her sister’s soul, to help her to accept that she was dead and to
make it easier for her to leave this world” (Sarriugarte-Gómez 2019, 89).
As an adult she would have different experiences with spiritualism until she met
the Theosophical Society. This ideology irrevocably molded the thought of the
artist, who went on to join the Society and was later influenced by Rudolf Steiner’s
Anthroposophy. Steiner was known for his scientific and philosophical theories to
which he added a spiritual component after experiencing what he described as a
personal encounter with Christ. As a consequence of this encounter, he developed
the Anthroposophy that interested Hilma af Klint to such an extent that, from 1925
onwards, the artist abandoned painting to devote herself entirely to anthroposophical
studies (Arantza Pardo 2017, 82–83), so that it is not possible to find paintings or
notes for the period 1925–1930 (Hillström 2013, 279). By that date, she had produced
more than a thousand works, including the conventional landscapes and portraits for
which she was known in her circle and the spiritual paintings for which she is known
today.
Hilma af Klint joined the Stockholm School of Arts, Design and Crafts in 1879,
where she first made contact with spiritualist milieus and the Theosophical Society
in the Swedish capital. Later, between 1882 and 1887, she trained as a painter at the
Royal Swedish Academy of Fine Arts, where she earned money by selling botanical
drawings, portraits and landscapes in naturalistic style: “With a sense of broad-
-mindedness and impartiality, the artist opened up to what she saw in front of her,
whether people, landscape, or plants. Nature seemed to be perfect just as it was, and
therefore did not have to be improved but simply observed” (Müller-Westermann
– Widoff 2013, 37). As she was producing these commissions, she was working
clandestinely on her more personal pieces that are usually classified in series because
she usually focused on a theme or idea on different canvases or supports.
 Mónica Sánchez Tierraseca  258

Fig. 1. Hilma af Klint: The Dove, No. 1, Group IX/UW (1915).

Cortesy of Hilma af Klint Foundation. Photo: Moderna Museet, Stockholm, Sweden.
 Tracing the absent  259

From 1906 to 1915 she created the series of Paintings for the Temple, consisting of
193 paintings organized into various sub-themes. The first group included a set of
paintings in which she confined herself to the colors yellow, blue and green, entitled
Primordial Chaos (1906). This was followed by The Ten Largest (1907–1908), consisting
of ten large paintings in which she depicted the four stages of life from infancy to
old age using symbolic language, and The Dove (1915) (Almqvist – Belfrage 2020,
21–24) [Fig. 1]. The artist stated that the works were made in a context beyond the
physically visible, as her hand was directed by spiritual entities: “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 brushstroke” (Müller-Westermann –
Widoff 2013, 38). In this collection she deals with themes such as duality, universal
unity, macrocosm and microcosm, trying to make visible by automatic drawings
what exists on a level that eye cannot see.
However, between 1908 and 1912 she interrupted painting in order to study
Christianity in depth, and this was reflected in the later groups. With The Swan and
the Dove and Parsifal, she initiates an irreversible process towards sacred geometry,
expressing the much looked-for unity by means of Christian symbols which become
more and more recognizable, with an emphasis on the dove, the swan, the Latin
cross and the contrast between black and white [Figs. 2–3]. In the second she also
focuses on the search for knowledge, with particular attention to the circularity of the
process, a clear recurrence of Christian mystical language.

Figs. 2–3. Hilma af Klint: The Swan, No. 1 (left) and No. 8 (right), Group IX/SUW (1915).
Cortesy of Hilma af Klint Foundation. Photo: Moderna Museet, Stockholm, Sweden.
 Mónica Sánchez Tierraseca  260

Notebooks and mystical language

Hilma af Klint’s visual artwork reveals a continuous contact with religion and
mysticism. We have discussed her paintings, but how does this relationship show up
in her notebooks, and what results of her research were so significant that she wrote
down the “+x” symbols and asked for them to be covered up?
In added to all of that mentioned above, one event in the artist’s life and work
that took place between 1896 and 1907 stands out. In those years Hilma became
involved in spiritual practice in a more personal way as a member of the group The
Five [De Fem] or “The Friday Group” [Fredagsgruppen]. The five friends met weekly
for religious discussions that concluded in séances. Photographs of the rooms where
the meetings took place show different altars with highly symbolic objects of a nature.
One of them shows a table draped in white tablecloth and decorated with roses, lilies
and palm leaves, as well as candles and a crucifix in the center. Above and on the wall
is the image of Christ kneeling in Gethsemane (Sarriugarte-Gómez 2019, 91).
Usually, one of them went into a trance to communicate with sacred spirits and
wrote down the messages given to her by these entities, which they named and
distinguished clearly. It was at this time that she started practicing automatic writing,
which later developed into automatic drawings. When the group disbanded, Af Klint
continued to contact these spirits and they instructed her to paint some of their
pictures.
From all these investigations of non-visible planes, a notebook that Hilma made
between 1919 and 1920 is particularly original. In 1927 the artist decided to donate
the original to the archive of Naural Sciences at Rudolf Steiner’s Goetheanum in
Dornach, which proves that the contents demonstrated in this notebook were of
particular importance to her (Burgin 2018, 160). Flowers, Mosses, and Lichens is not
a notebook written by mystical experience, but a notebook in which Hilma af Klint
describes all her knowledge obtained from these experiences.
Even though it contains generalized information, it constitutes evidence of
the continued presence of Hilma’s mystical language as she uses several Christian
concepts. Her annotations are arranged with an interesting aesthetic intention. In the
manner of a diary, she makes a symbolic drawing and inscribes a brief explanation
of its meaning. The artist distributes the notes in an astonishingly harmonious way:
she divides the pages into two sections, top and bottom, so that when the notebook
is opened, the notes are ordered in a quadrangular pattern. With them she makes
numerous allusions to concepts such as love of life, paternal and fraternal care,
balance, harmony, willpower, humility, hope and many others, which she calls
“directional lines”.
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Fig. 4. Hilma af Klint: from a work on Flowers, Mosses, and Lichen (May 27, 1920).
Cortesy of Hilma af Klint Foundation. Photo: Moderna Museet, Stockholm, Sweden.

In May-June 1920, in Flowers, Mosses, and Lichens, she completed a collection of

descriptions of Christian symbols dominated by a Latin cross in different perspectives
and dimensions and of different colors to which she gave meaning. Thus, in the space
dedicated to 27 May [Fig. 4], we found that an inverted cross traversed by lightning
bolts represents “injured pride [and] desire for injury to the human body” (Klint
1920, 55).
Among these Christian revelations we also find the design of four concentric
circles supported by the following description: “xxxx Into this field enters he who
desires truth/ xxx Into this field enters he who believes in truth/ xx Into this field
enters he who follows truth/ x Into this field enters he who forgets everything because
of truth” (Klint 1920: 52). Each of the verses depicts one of the circles, from outer to
inner. In other words, each circle represents a closer approach to the truth, so the
inner one contains all of them.
On the following page, the artist draws the same design, but now she places four x’s
in the position of the cardinal directions in the second inner circle [Fig. 5]. According
to the inscription for each mark, the x’s represent the four Evangelists. In this way, she
adds the next clarifications:

John, more than the others, possessed belief in his ability to receive awareness / Mark
tried to show that earthly bliss can be won only through distribution of the power of
 Mónica Sánchez Tierraseca  262

one’s own being / Matthew. Grateful reception of enlightenment / Luke tried to show
that dullness can be overcome through a desire for the elevation of the life of feelings
(Klint 1920, 53).

The position of each mark suggests that these biblical figures are located in the
concentric circle identified on the previous page with the description: “…who follows
truth.” Indeed, as followers of Jesus, Hilma considers that they follow truth. Moreover,
she draws twelve connecting lines between this circle and the internal one. By this
she implies that the first circle refers to Jesus, as he is the only one “who forgets
everything because of truth”, and in the second circle are not only the Evangelists but
all the apostles of Jesus. In this way the artist represents her own interpretation of
searching for the truth, which could only be God, as one of the results of her research
into divine nature and her mystical experiences.

Fig. 5. Hilma af Klint: from a work on Flowers, Mosses, and Lichen (May 21, 1920).
Cortesy of Hilma af Klint Foundation. Photo: Moderna Museet, Stockholm, Sweden.

Conclusion

Hilma af Klint explored new horizons at the beginning of the twentieth century
and developed abstract imagery even before the so-called precursors of abstract
art (Müller-Westermann – Widoff 2013, 33). According to the above, we can affirm
 Tracing the absent  263

that mysticism in Hilma af Klint’s artwork refers to her religious experience and
her process of searching for answers about existence by contacting supraterrestrial
spirits. Although the identity of these beings is not clear, their affinity with the
Christian religion is certain. Her notebook Flowers, Mosses, and Lichens compiles
the results of her research into the origin of natural things. Our analysis shows that
these investigations are related to the search for and representation of the absent in a
spiritual and divine sense.
The artist aims to illustrate a spiritual dimension of existence combining Christian
elements with metaphysical and, in particular, anthroposophical ones. In a certain
way her work could be reflected in the words of Rudolf Steiner: “Just as the physical
eye owes it to the sun that it can see what is within the reach of its visual power, so
the Christian mystic says to himself: ‘I lift up my inner self so that I may behold the
Divine’” (1984, 164). Definitely, dullness of senses caused by the ecstasy of the Way of
Union implies some difficulties to describe the experience and what Hilma af Klint
did to achieve this was to combine shapes and colours with symbols and words.

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CONTACT
Mónica Sánchez Tierraseca
PhD. candidate

University of Castilla-La Mancha

Spain
[email protected]