Women artists, or the mysterious Hilma af Clint

"My mission, if it is successful, will be of great importance to humanity. For I am able to describe the path of the soul from the beginning of life to its end." Hilma af Clint, 1917

Of course, every person dreams, perhaps secretly, of making a significant contribution to the history of mankind. And every artist wants to become someone who will change the course of the history of art and create something completely different.

Currently, there is an incredible number of different artists in the world, but nevertheless not all of them are actually able to give the world something really special. The history of art is dotted with the names of great men - Leonardo da Vinci, Vincent Van Gogh, Pablo Picasso and others.

But what about the women who helped shape the world artistic culture?

And in general, can a woman, having a distinctive and peculiar only to her feeling, high intuition and sometimes even foresight of the future, claim such recognition? Can she make that special contribution to humanity?

This story will be about Hilma af Clint, whose exhibition I visited at the Tate Modern Museum in London. Woman, who actually surpassed her time in painting and art.

An innovator of abstract art, Swedish artist Hilma af Klint (Hilma af Klint, 1862-1944) is a woman with an extremely difficult but rather interesting fate and an exceptional case in modern painting.

She always dreamed that she would actually succeed, which is called perfection. She is an artist, and in an extremely difficult and very extraordinary genre. Abstract art was far from so easy to perceive in her time and for this reason many people did not know at all how she felt about what she was doing. Hilma did not adapt to standards, ideals and was engaged exclusively in what brings her really serious pleasure, leaving conventions. She tried to live art and tried to show everyone that painting has many forms and all of them are really very valuable and very important.

Hilma af Clint in her workshop. Photograph of the 1900s Sketches of future works

Hilma began her career as a landscape painter and became one of the first women to receive a higher art education. Hilma af Klint was ahead of her time and, like many geniuses, was not recognised during her lifetime. She developed her visual language 5 years earlier than other abstractionists of her time, including Vasily Kandinsky, Kazimir Malevich and Pete Mondrian.

I experimented with surrealism for decades before the appearance of this trend! This woman was a pioneer. Clint became famous much later than others, partly because she wanted to keep her works secret until her death.

It is still unknown how, but this artist managed to keep 1000 of her paintings secret for many years!

Therefore, the mystery has truly become her charm! The subtle and at the same time powerful art of Hilma af Klint quietly conveys a loud and important message. Af Clint, described as a mystic and a medium, conducted sessions and communicated with spirits. According to rumours, she even received a special message from higher powers to create the most iconic works - the "Temple" cycle.

She was a passionate botanist, well versed in natural sciences and world religions. With unparallelled wisdom and anticipating human stupidity, Hilma af Clint not only stated that her works should not be shown for 20 years after her death, but also set a condition that her works be sold only together (otherwise they may be misinterpreted).

Photo from the exhibition

And after a little more than the specified time, her works have not only become recognised, but also very relevant, reflecting the realities of the ongoing transformations of mankind.

Did she really foresee it?!

Her mystical work debuted abroad in 1986, touring from Los Angeles to The Hague. And in 2013, a large retrospective of 230 paintings was held at the Stockholm Museum Moderna Museet. Now the artist's fame is only growing: the exhibition at the Guggenheim Museum in 2018-2019 broke the museum's attendance record, gathering more than 600,000 visitors.

According to researcher Marco Pasi, "most of the debate about the historical significance of Clint's works revolves around the question of whether the artist developed an abstract style of painting before the artists, who are traditionally considered the initiators of this style. However, it seems that the more important thing is not which of the artists was the first to create abstract images, but how the artist in the position of Af Clint (who was relatively marginalised both geographically and personally) was able to develop a new visual style".

The artist's paintings are guides to another dimension, where understanding occurs through artistic and spiritual understanding of what is seen.

The story of her life and work resonated with me very much, inspired me and even gave me courage in her self-expression. She used letters, texts, symbols, ovals, circles in her works and painted with watercolours, which again was very unusual for that time. She was an experimenter of her time and an innovator. All this is close to me in my artistic practice. It's so interesting to see your thoughts and ideas in already realised works and at the same time draw inspiration for yourself, pass it through yourself and transform it into something new, consonant with our time.

Today, Hilma af Clint's paintings can be seen in leading museums of contemporary art, and exhibitions of her works attract many visitors.

Even after her death, Hilma achieved her way and fulfilled the "great assignment" left to her by the spirits - illustrated the spiritual world and created temples. Ephemeral, like life itself.

The article is presented for the art school

Artistic Communications Of Yulia Sysalova

Photo from the exhibition