Hotspur🏳️🌈🇺🇦"The Ten Largest, No. 8, Adulthood," Hilma af Klint, 1907.
Af Klint (1862-1944), Swedish painter and mystic, is finally getting her due after years of being overlooked. Now she is hailed as the first Abstract artist, a title she was often passed over because, well, she was a woman.
Driven by mystical visions where she believed she was getting communications from the next world, or being guided by heavenly beings, she recorded her visions on canvas. This is one of a series she painted depicting the four stages of life: childhood, youth, adulthood, and old age. She spent four days on this huge canvas (10 1/2 feet by 8 feet!) and in part it's meant to explore mankind's relationship with nature, as well as giving us some new words, supposedly communicated to her by her spirit guides.
Her work is fascinating to look over, and it's fascinating to think how af Klint's spiritual quest ended up with her basically inventing Abstract art.
From a private collection.
