Welcome

Welcome
John William Tuohy lives in Washington DC

Hilma af Klint


  
Hilma af Klint (October 26, 1862 October 21, 1944) was a Swedish artist and mystic whose paintings were among the first Western abstract art. A considerable body of her abstract work predates the first purely abstract compositions by Kandinsky. She belonged to a group called "The Five", a circle of women who shared her belief in the importance of trying to make contact with the so-called "High Masters"—often by way of séances. Her paintings, which sometimes resemble diagrams, were a visual representation of complex spiritual ideas.  Af Klint's work can be understood in the wider context of the Modernist search for new forms in artistic, spiritual, political and scientific systems at the beginning of the 20th century. One will find the same interest in spirituality in other artists during this same period, such as Wassily Kandinsky, Piet Mondrian, Kasimir Malevitch and the French Nabis of which many were, like af Klint, inspired by the Theosophical Movement. However, the artistic transition to abstract art and the nonfigurative painting of Hilma af Klint would occur without any contacts with the contemporary modern movements.