Hilma Af Klint

I Love Circles, Squares and Triangles!

The Swan, No. 15 (1915)

Oil on Canvas 

I really like the work of Hilma Af Klint. I find her work even more intrigueing as her geometric and more abstract looking work was completed before abstract artists such as Kandinsky. I particularly like this image above. I am really attracted to geometric art. I like the simplicity and yet within it, there is so much depth. The black and white triangles at counterpoint and meeting on a horizon with a sun or moon rising or setting is a striking image and metahor. I love that the image is essentially made of a circle, a square and 2 triangles in a minimal pallete of mostly black and white, and yet the overall image feels so complex. I find it beautiful.

No. 2, Childhood (1907)

Oil on Canvas

I also like this image. I love the balance and contrast of the bold, slightly overlapping circles at the bottom of the painting, with the pastel and more floral circles at the top half of the painting. Again, the painting does suggest a strong metaphor, rather than just an attractive painting. The lavender and pinks seem to balance and be "anchored" by the strong textured royal blue and the yellow gold communicates with the gold and lemons above it. Hilma Af Klint said her paintings were inspired directly from the spirit world. They do have a strongly ethereal feel in my view. 

The Swan, No.17 (1914)

Oil on Canvas

I find I admire Hilma Af Klints attunement to the changes in the art world when I look at this image. She was not part of the network of abstract artists that were experimenting with this style and yet I don't think this painting would look out of place in the Bauhaus styles evolving some years later.