Hilma Af Klint (1862 – 1944)

Hilma af Klint (1862 – 1944)

Lesbian, schizophrenic, resourceful and beautiful woman paints forbidden love and longing in a geometrical visual language no one has ever seen before. Content The Swans page 2 Childhood and Adolescense page 3 The Five page 4 Primordial Chaos page 5 Art of the Insane page 6 Hilma´s Spiritual Masters page 8 The Ten Largests page 9 Symbols page 11 The Theosophists’ Color View page 12 Sexuality page 12 The Small Organ page 13 The Fifth Gospel page 14 Vestal Virgin and Ascetic page 15 Main Works page 16 Self Confidence and Rejection page 19 Theosophists page 20 «Hundred years ago, Hilma af Klint painted works for the future.» page 21 About the testament’s twenty-year clause and «Entartete Kunst» page 22 Influence from Rudolf Steiner page 24 Talent for Prophecies? page 25 Georgina Houghton page 27 Modernism page 29 Carl Gustav Jung page 31 The Unconscious Mind page 32 The Tree of Knowledge page 33 The Dove page 35 The Temple on Ven page 36

From the exhibition on Høvikodden autumn 2015 E-mail the author. Click here. The Swans My first encounter with Hilma af Klint was the first work in the Swan series, a white and a black swan touching each other with the tips of their wings and kissing. My immediate impression was that this is a beautiful and strong motif showing oppressed longing for forbidden love. The black swan symbolizes what is sinful and forbidden, while the touching of the wings and the kiss symbolizes the longing for all this. Swans are erotic symbols, (Leda and the Swan), also used as a metaphor for lesbian love. Hilma (or her spirits, «The High Ones») naturally made a conscious choice of swans as metaphors. The «official» interpretation of the pair of swans is that it is a union of the male and the female, where the black swan represents male. Hilma knew that black swans are both male and female. The black swan has to mean something else than gender.

Hardly anyone writing about Hilma af Klint, dare touch her privacy, her possible childhood trauma, her conflict with Rudolf Steiner, her relationship with her friend Anna Cassel and other women, her fairly obvious schizophrenia, and the absence of men in her life. Karolina Witt is perhaps the one who has been closest to Hilma’s sexuality in a thesis from 2009: «Hilma af Klint. Temple Pictures and Contemporary Tales».

Everyone seems to accept the existence of a spirit world as a driving force for Hilma’s production. Hilma’s works and writings must be «gefundenes fressen» for the religiously convinced and for new-agers searching for spirituality. But for an atheist with no faith in the gods, spirits, or life after death, how does her work appear and what do they mean?

PAGE 2 Hilma af Klint by Finn Jacob Jacobsen Table of content page 1 From the exhibition at Høvikodden in autumn 2015 to give an impression of the dimensions of the largest works Childhood and Adolescense Hilma was the fourth of five siblings. She had «visions» as a child, perhaps as a result of the family being strictly religious and having lost their firstborn daughter before Hilma was born. If this dead daughter was referred to as a living spirit, it may not be so strange that the child Hilma experienced meeting a ghost. Eighteen years old, in 1880, she lost her youngest sister Hermina, who was only 10 years old. Hilma had already started art studies at the Royal Aca- demy of Arts in Stockholm, where she became acquainted with Anna Cassel who shared her interest in spiritism. Hilma sought the help of the spiritualists to get in touch with Her- mina in the hereafter, but with no success.

Hilma studied at the Royal Academy until 1887, graduated with good results, creating both portraits, landscape paintings and watercolors. The work gave her close contact with colors and shapes in nature, and she produced beautiful watercolors of flowers and plants. I don´t know if her works were approved among contemporary artist, but her craft was at least impeccable, something she makes full use of later in her «inspired» works. Female painters at that time Hilma student at the Royal Academy of Arts had difficulty being accepted as full-fledged artists. One perception was that «they were dilettantes who painted in anticipation of getting married».

Hilma appears to have had difficulties with her social life, and she does not give the impression of having a sex life. That might explain her outburst of creativity. But how is it possible to deal with her entire life and work without con- sidering love, sexuality and close relationships with other human beings? Living a life without love, without sex, as an «ascetic» or «vestal virgin», probably creates major psychic problems. To suppress love and erotic attraction, especially of a forbidden nature, will create a psyche that can easily have breakthroughs of voices in the mind.

PAGE 3 Hilma af Klint by Finn Jacob Jacobsen Table of content page 1 «The Five» Hilma joined with four girlfriends who share her spiritual interests, and they met regularly for seances seeking contact with spirits. The group became highly constricted given the name «The Five» in 1896. The other four were: Anna Cassel, Sigrid Hedman, Mathilde Nilsson and Cornelia Ceder- berg.

After seventeen years as a spiritualist, and as a mature woman (34) with «The Five», she heard voices in her head, spiritual beings with names from the history of religion, Ananda, Gregor, Clemens, Amaliel and Esther. Controlled by these spirits and in company with the other four women, she performed her first automatic writing and drawing. After a preparation time with spiritual contact, she did automatic writing and drawing lasting for 7-8 years. She was then told to start making paintings to be placed in a temple building. From 1906 she then produced in fast pace works with motifs shaped by spirits, motives which were not corrected along the way and with no prior knowledge of the final result.

The sessions of «The Five» usually started by reading something from the Bible. When the Spirits appeared, “The High Ones”, they would elaborate on the biblical verses. No new and unknown information was given, thus revealing that the source of the spirits is the subconscious mind of the intermediary. When the spirits speak of Jesus, they are walking on thin ice, as the existence of Jesus, as it is described in the Bible, is highly questionable. And when the resur- rection, an impossible event, is mentioned, it establishes the location of the spirit in the subconscious mind. This will not make the experience, the art or the personality worse, rather to the contrary. To reduce Hilma’s achievement as an artist because she was directed by spirits, is just as stupid as reducing Mozart to a printer of notes ordered by God.

PAGE 4 Hilma af Klint by Finn Jacob Jacobsen Table of content page 1 «Primordial Chaos» The first series of images directed by «The High Ones» is called Urkaos (Primordial Chaos) and illustrate the creation of the world. They are quite small pictures, 26 in all, with motifs showing basic elements Hilma further develops in her largest paintings. Snail shells, spirals, U and W are central and repeated symbols, texts included in the motifs are: avonwener, vestals and ascetics in the service of the Lord, evolution, Ararat, eros.

U / V and W connect to eros and love. There are also crosses, sperms and eggs. Spirals are found everywhere in nature, from sunflowers to spiral galaxies, from pine cones and snail shells to cyclones. Snail shells are a good choice as a symbol of development because the shell’s growth occurs logarithmically, as a fibonacci sequence.

Many plants use fastening threads, twisting in spirals. It is an effective way to find anchoring points, and Hilma had botanical knowledge giving an overview of all this. May the spirals in her pictures symbolize the plants’ threads and her own pursuit of affiliation?

She also produced large amounts of prose originated from her inner voices. Complex patterns of sentences, often re- petitious. They do not contain innovative or unknown facts, but in style and content, they resemble what other «mystics» produced, such as Carl Gustav Jung (page 31) and Georgina Houghton (page 27). Both of them produced large amounts of prose in addition to creating fascinating works of art.

PAGE 5 Hilma af Klint by Finn Jacob Jacobsen Table of content page 1 Art of the «Insane» Hilma was no sole supplier of images ordered by spirits. Contemporary artists were Adolf Wölfli, August Natterer, Augustin Lesage and Seraphine Louis. Today, the Internet is filled with «inspired» art which, in imagination and ex- pressiveness, surpasses Hilma. Among many others, Pablo Amaringo, Ody Saban, Alexandro Garcia and Howard Finster. Also, «my» schizophrenic Norwegian painter, Bendik Riis, was inspired by inner voices.

August Natterer Augustin Lesage

Seraphine Louis

”I heard a voice speaking inside my breast, and then I was completely changed.”

Howard Finster PAGE 6 Hilma af Klint by Finn Jacob Jacobsen Table of content page 1 Ody Saban Henry Darger lived an unhappy childhood with sexual abu- se, and later a life in loneliness. He created a large 15.000 pages illustrated heroic tale where the main characters were transsexual little girls who fought for Christianity´s victory.

Adolf Wölfli was arrested for sexual assault and produced a large number of works at Waldau Mental Hospital and a tale covering 25,000 pages, a story of heroic expeditions. Many of his works include writings and musical notes. Several Henry Darger musical works and an opera, «Der Göttliche Tivoli» by Per Nørgård are based on Wölfli’s strange musical notations.

The Swedish painter Carl Fredrik Hill had a mental breakdown in 1877, two years after he had an accident in his studio in Paris that caused him facial injuries and painful ope- rations followed by the death of his dear sister Anna. He was admitted to mental hospital, and a few years later transfer- red to his family’s care. The disease caused voice hallucina- Henry Darger: Title unknown. Girls having penises at war. tions and released a creative power that was translated into images and a flood of writing, both prose and poems. Such Carl Fredrik Hill: Title unknown inspired texts have a design that looks like word paintings as well as a hardly understandable tale. Hills lyrics appeared in public only when his sister Hedda died in 1931. «Poems and writings in some languages, Nagug». It starts like this:

The glory of poems, from the high Rich wide proud halls See me with a friendly eye Down in green valleys

Adolf Wölfli in front a volumi- Carl Fredrik Hill nous stack of manuscripts. Hill self portrait

PAGE 7 Hilma af Klint by Finn Jacob Jacobsen Table of content page 1 Adolf Wölfli: Combining graphic, written texts and musical notes. Carl Fredrik Hill, like Hilma, received his guidance from «The High Ones». Inspiration from higher beings are seen in all art forms and at all times. This is a brain function that some persons are able to experience. It appears to be asso- ciated with difficult personal relationships, such as childhood traumatic experiences, reduced or severely limited sensory perception, hunger (fast), asceticism, sexual abstinence, or use of hallucinogenic drugs (ayahuasca, LSD, DMT, psilocybin).

Gurli Lindén translated Hilma’s texts into a simpler language and erased repetitions. How important are the repetitions and the written style of the message? May they point to elements in the mental processes interpreted as spiritual messages? Hilma strived to understand what she had recorded when inspired, and she reworked the written material several times. In a script of more than 1,000 pages in 1917-18, «Studies of the Mind,» she tried to interpret and understand her own works.

Carl Fredrik Hill: Title unknown Hilma´s spiritual masters Carl Fredrik Hill: Title unknown. Mix of drawing and letters. Ananda (great delight) was one of the ten most important disciples of the Buddha, the one who listened to the Buddha and took care of him for his last 25 years. Buddha’s lessons were written down based on Ananda’s memory. Gregor, pope around the year 600, a saint after his death. Clemens (merciful) Alexandrinus. Christian theologian around the year 200. Amaliel was the angel of punishment and human weakness. Esther, Jewish wife of a Persian king, heroine of the Jews from a story in the Old Testament. I have found no mention of Gidro, he may be a name Hilma has created. He appeared during the first spiritualist seanses in the 1890s. He would be her companion through life and her husband in Heaven. Esther Clemens Ananda Gregor

PAGE 8 Hilma af Klint by Finn Jacob Jacobsen Table of content page 1 Hilma’s religious knowledge, including the spiritualists’ interest in Eastern religions, would certainly include knowledge of these names and persons, conscious or unconscious. The Christian cross will be an important element in several of the main works Hilma creates a few years later.

The Ten Largest In 1907, she paints her ten largest works, about 2.5 x 3 me- ters, meant to be collectively viewed in a future temple. Two are titled childhood, two adolescent, four adulthood and two old age. Many symbols are consecutively used, an unrestrained game with shapes and colors, playing with letters where u and w dominate. Vestal ascetic is mentioned in one painting. These largest paintings give me a feeling of looking into the room of an adolescent girl. «The High Ones», who had controlled the design of these paintings, From the series «Seven Stars» must have had a young girl’s mind despite their male names. Shapes, lines, curves and colors in many of her works look very feminine to me, many of the forms associate to eroticism. There is a pronounced solitude and yearning for love in many motifs, but is it male / female or is it a disguised lesbian love?

Hilma was no feminist. Her perception of men’s and women’s roles was quite fundamentalist Christian. The contemporary view of female artists was that they were dilettantes who pursued painting in anticipation of marriages. Friedrich Nietzsche claimed that «if a woman becomes an academic, it’s usually because something is wrong with her genital organs» and August Strindberg said women found themselves mentally and physically between a child and a servant, and that creative women ruined their femininity. Rudolf Steiner shared the Rosenkreutzers’ view that man was further developed than women. The ten largest: The ten largest: «Childhood» «Childhood» PAGE 9 Hilma af Klint by Finn Jacob Jacobsen Table of content page 1 The ten largest: «Adolescence» The ten largest: «Adolescence» The ten largest: «Adult» The ten largest: «Adult»

The ten largest: «Adult» The ten largest: «Adult» The ten largest: «Old Age» The ten largest: «Old Age» Symbols In her writing «Symbols, Letters and Words,» Hilma tries to explain and understand the meaning of the characters and symbols contained in her images. Snail shells and spirals represent evolution. The eye and the hook, blue and yellow, the lily and the rose represent the female and the male. W represents the material while U represents the spiritual. The convex form that occurs when two circles intersect, called «vesica pisces», fish bladder, is an ancient symbol of unity and fulfillment, but also symbol of the male and female, the circles the female, the convex form the male. The swan represents the extrasensory in many mythologies and religions and means fulfillment in Alchemy tradition. In Christianity the dove represents the Holy Spirit and love.

I think U and W (a double-U) symbolize Hilma and her lover and their worldly desire. The letters v and w with round shapes may be interpreted in many ways. Rudolf Steiner, Both from the series «The Seven Stars» Both from the series «The Swan» whom she meets in 1908, converts v to a, thus getting alpha and omega, the first and last letters of the Greek alphabet. Maybe not quite spot on, rather a simple solution? v and w often combine with the male and female and can be linked to that. For Hilma it seems to be male and female integra- ted. It may point to a rationalization of lesbian love. Two v linked closely together is a w. Hilma gives both v and w rounded, female shapes and w may represent love between two women. It gives a good, exciting and richer interpretation of many of the works where they occur.

PAGE 11 Hilma af Klint by Finn Jacob Jacobsen Table of content page 1 The Theosophists’ Color View

Hilma was well acquainted with the spiritual platform of the High Devotion Devotion Pure Selfish Theosophists and their views on the use of colors. I seem to spirituality mixed with to a noble religious religious affection ideal feeling feeling recognize Hilma’s color choices in the palette of the Theo- sophists. Yellow is tied to intellectual satisfaction, unselfish use of the intellect, blue is tied to religious feelings, Religious

feeling Highest Strong in- Low type of self-sacrifice and unity with the divine, red is tied to anger, Pride tinged with intellect tellect intellect beastly passion and sensual desire, green shows adaptabi- fear lity and sympathy, black is hatred and malice. The gloss and strength of the colors are usually a measure of the intensity of the feelings. These color interpretations differ from how Love for Unselfish Selfish Pure Sympathy humanity affection affection affection Hilma’s color choices normally are interpreted; blue for the male, yellow for the female.

Sexuality No one seems to associate sexual trauma with her artis- Adapability Jealousy Deceit Fear Depression tic works. It is strange that a beautiful, powerful woman chooses a life of chastity in service of spirits and only lives together with women. It is unthinkable to me that a life without eroticism and proximity to a lover should not be re- Selfishness Avarice Anger Sensuality Malice flected in her art. Both in plain text and between the lines lies her desire, longing, sexual orientation and trauma. Hilma looks like a blend of nuns and mystics. There are good examples of how abstinence, isolation, forbidden eroticism and fantasies about being the bride of Christ, give rise to hallucinations, both visual and aural. Hilma’s long line from hallucinations as a child through experiments with spiritualism to get in touch with her deceased ten-year-old little sister, to the confined, tainted existence with “The Five” Hildegard von Bingen´s sexual fantasy of being through years of exercises to achieve contact with higher Jesus’ bride looks to me like a transformed female beings, provide the perfect basis for those voices which genitalia with a naked youth that appears when eventually breaks into Hilma’s mind. There is a tremendous Satan unfolds the labia. Christ´s head (and Satan mental power in oppressed and unrealized sexuality, not below it) is located where the clitoris is seated. least that which is religiously prohibited and qualifies for a With self-composed music, Hildegard might easily place in Hell. Is this what drives Hilma’s giant production of pass the nights in the barren cell of the monastery. text and images? PAGE 12 Hilma af Klint by Finn Jacob Jacobsen Table of content page 1 One source mentions that in her youth she had a short-term relationship with a man. Something might have gone wrong, maybe it was then she realized that she was attracted to her own gender? Perhaps there was something physical that made the relationship impossible? I may even imagine that Hilma perhaps has been a hermafrodite.

In her writings she seems to have a simplified view of men, Both works from «The Large Figur Paintings» both physically and intellectually. In the «Large Figure Paintings» man / woman is quite poorly painted, in some strange, unerotic positions, with men as a kind of Christ figures, with persons who do not look at each other. The series ends with a circular motif filled with hearts and very feminine forms and a lionhead over a gem as the woman’s most sensitive part.

«The Small Organ» And to be able to perceive when the right moment is present, there is a strange way, if we could understand, to instantly help us realize if we tread on the right paths or not. The small organ that is easily aroused and shivering during juvenile years is so sensitive that if meeting with another individual, there arise within that organ a strange unrest on whether the individual may not be the right one. But if the individual would be our second half, there will be a strange calm feeling in the small sensitive organ of the woman. For in this limited area lies the entire nervous sensitivity of a woman, which thus brought to unrest, causes her anxiety and dismay if it was aroused by a wrong individual. The next question is how a male individual senses the power of creation. Through his own organ, he has ... a note of great importance. Many of those who struggle on the same sensitivity, within himself, when he makes a mistake, either the scene of life have been wearing a costume that is not the a sense of anger, of brutality or one of relaxation. If he is exposed to right one. Many women’s clothes hide the man. Many male the outbreak of anger, he continues uncontrollably. If he is exposed clothes conceal the woman. (Hilma) to the opposite feelings, he retires. He is basically disappointed and either he becomes a tormentor who repeatedly tries to find the way to the pleasurable area, or he gets indifferent, selfishly abandoning the victim. (Hilma)

PAGE 13 Hilma af Klint by Finn Jacob Jacobsen Table of content page 1 The Fifth Gospel In the content of her fifth gospel on dualism, that all people are both men and women, Hilma refers to Phytagoras, Plato and Socrates, who probably have known the myth that man was created asexual, androgynously, eventually that man came to Earth as an angel that split into a male and a female body and thus is forever longing for a fusion of the sexes. In Hindu creation myth, the creator of the universe, Brahma, splits into a male and female part. Their embrace and union is the source of the creative power. By that, humans and all living beings are created. Then Brahma becomes one again. Bhakti poets in India in the 1100s would break down the boundaries between the throws, between humans and between the sexes, as far as wanting to dissolve the gender identity. Basavanna: Listen, dear friend, I wear these men’s clothes just for you. Sometimes, I’m a man, sometimes a woman. Dasimayya: If they see breasts and long hair, they call that woman. If shrubs and cheekbones, they call that man. But the self that floats in between, is neither man nor woman. Both works from «The Large Figur Paintings» Both works from «The Seven Stars»

Hilma writes in her diary: In the beginning, the primal force God Almighty created man and woman, and thus they walked in each other’s immediate vicinity, and because they owned a common spirit, they could not live sepa- rated. Each basic creation is thus meant to be dual. Neither male nor female is independent of each other, diversity within the universe is governed by common rules.

I think that Hilma needs this dualism to understand that she is attracted to her own gender, but that she cannot practice her sexuality. And that the choice of a female partner would both create scandal and qualify for eternal perdition for her who was strictly raised in the Christian faith. Was that why she became so focused on explaining that humans have both a female and a male part, her Fifth Gospel?

PAGE 14 Hilma af Klint by Finn Jacob Jacobsen Table of content page 1 Vestal Virgin and Ascetic Hilma´s rather profound description of the relationship between man and woman seems to be a disguised lesbian love. Her strong Christian affiliation will probably not have room for practicing lesbian love. Anna Cassel is a likely lover. She is noted as a vestal virgin in a painting, Hilma as an ascetic. Anna is wealthy and funded building of an atelier for Hilma in 1916. Would one be so generous just to a good friend, or was it a closer relationship? One of Hilma’s notebooks has a message from one of the Spiritual Masters: We wish to say two words about the two of you united as spiritual friends: Ascetic. Vestal. You two are H = Ascetic, A = Vestal. Both Asketic and Vestal have a task of performing a major work in the world. a e c s m g h (probably Anna, E?, Cornelia, Sigrid, Mat- hilde, Gusten, Hilma) Trying to make this matter understood by mankind. Us = Winter, the reason why the heart can only be fully heated by only one because two souls have a common spirit. Mira- cles will happen.

Anna Cassel is one of «The Five», and she can be found as small keys in Hilma’s works. Hilma calls herself Vestal Asce- tic, Anna is referred to as Vestal Virgin. Another woman, who later became a close friend, Gusten, was referred to as both a dual and a Vestal Virgin.

Vestal Virgins were servants in Vesta’s temple. They had to swear a chastity oath for the duration of 30 years. If they broke their oath, they were buried alive. Vestal Virgins were daughters of distinguished families and started their service between the ages of six and ten, before the onset of puber- ty. And before the girls themselves had an opportunity to choose what they wanted to do. Vesta was the goddess of an everlasting burning fire that the Vestal Virgins guarded. They could marry when their service was ended, and as 40 years old involuntary virgins from wealthy families, they were probably most attractive brides.

PAGE 15 Hilma af Klint by Finn Jacob Jacobsen Table of content page 1 Anna Cassel ukjent tittel Main works Between 1906 and 1915 Hilma af Klint painted her central works, 193 paintings, of these 111 between November 1906 and April 1908, 16 months. 1 large work in 4 days. She painted automatically, guided by the subconscious mind: «The Four works motifs were painted through me without sketches and with great from the series force. I did not know what the paintings were supposed to be, yet I «The Swan» worked quickly and safely without changing a single brush stroke.»

The «Swan» series consist of both two figurative swans and purely geometric shapes linked to the swan motif. The first two swans are shown on page two. The next swan motif, nujmber three, shows the swans clung to each other in the boundary of light and dark in a position that can hardly be interpreted otherwise than an erotic, almost brutal embrace, with the white swan having blood on the under- side of one of the wings.

The next swan painting seems to show the result of a battle between the swans where the black lies defeated on the ground with one of the wings colored white, while the white swan is hovering in the air with a black spot on one wing.

Painting number seven shows five swans geometrically yin and yang mounted extending long throats like snakes towards a heart that is located in the center of the image. It is hard to see that this is anything but «The Five»’s common love and desire.

The last painting in the series, number twentyfour, shows a fused embrace of a white and a black swan, a beautiful ex- pression of love and what is forbidden to be overcome? The Swan motif easily connects to Yin and Yang, a symbol from Chinese philosophy that represents opposite principles. Yin and Yang may well symbolize the fusion of the female and the male, each half of the symbol includes a small spot from the other half.

PAGE 16 Hilma af Klint by Finn Jacob Jacobsen Table of content page 1 More works from «The Swan» where she further develops the motif. Parsifal was one of the knights of the Round Table in search of spiritual wisdom. Hilma’s picture from 1916 shows two spirals, one starting from the top and the other from the bottom, joining into a white center. The image resembles the tunnel that many see in near-death experiences or in hallucinations, as they move inward in the darkness towards a bright spot at the end, opening a cosmic experience where gods, angels and deceased relatives exist. It may well be that Hilma had experienced this kind of vision in one of her hallucinations when she had contact with her spiritual masters. The same tunnel experience can be achieved by using hallucinogenic drugs.

«Parsifal»

«Parsifal» The painting called «Human Chastity» shows a woman wearing a bridal crown. She holds a glowing heart in a beautiful position of her hands, she is naked with slightly spread legs and appears to be lying inside a shape that may well be interpreted as labia with her head in the position of clitoris. The motif is strictly enclosed in a circular dark room with a threatening cross breaking its way up between the thighs of the female figure. Is the bride stretching her head toward something outside the room as a longing for an unattainable (female) lover? The image gives the impression of a despai- ringly loneliness. «Human Chastity» PAGE 18 Hilma af Klint by Finn Jacob Jacobsen Table of content page 1 «Parsifal» Self Confidence and Rejection Hilma had allegedly received strict commands from her spiritual guides not to show her works to outsiders. I have not seen any actual documentation of this. On the contrary, she painted the works for the temple to be exposed to an audience.

Could her possible restraint and insecurity be because she feared that the erotic lesbian content would create a scandal? That they should reveal her inner longings for carnal love? Hilma – Ascetic, Anna – Vestal Virgin? She was already «unnatural» as an artist, and her being a lesbian would con- firm her «perversion» and put all male artists’ minds at rest, including Rudolf Steiner.

In March 1908, Steiner was in Stockholm. Hilma hoped that he would understand her works, but Steiner showed her medium-guided inspirations a cold shoulder. He meant artists should abstain from both inspired painting and painting naturalistically. True art should be somewhere in between these extremes. He told her to contact him again when she had finished her works, if her «guru» would allowe it. This must have been a big disappointment for Hilma. Her work halted completely.

At the same time, she had to take care of her mother who was getting blind. They moved to a smaller apartment, and Hilma had to leave her spacious studio. That caused the end of the big formats. Hilma probably had no great self- esteem, and Steiner’s rejection and condescending attitude was another important reason why her work stopped. But after a four-year long break from 1908 to 1912, she comple- Fra serien ”Duen” ted 82 works in a two-year period. That is on average one These motives almost look like a quote from Hildegard von Bingen’s erotic motive on page 12. new work every ten days. Hilma’s version contains both a dragon and a knight. The combination of a heart and female genitals is powerful. The knight seems to tickle clitoris with his sword offending some pale men’s heads. Crosses hang as threaths both above and below the «heart».

PAGE 19 Hilma af Klint by Finn Jacob Jacobsen Table of content page 1 Theosophists Theosophists and Rudolf Steiner had revived Platon’s myth of Atlantis with romantic fantasies about Tibet. Among the esoterics of the 1800’s, it was widely accepted that when Atlantis sank into the ocean, the survivors had taken refuge on a high rise plateau in Asia, Tibet, where they were pro- tected from the masses of water that had drowned their country. The mountain Ararat was also found in Tibet, the home of Hilma’s spiritual guides, including «Brothers of Ararat», a group of Rosenkreuzers. The notion of an Aryan homeland in India / Tibet / Gobi desert was an idea that flourished in German romanticism and also reverberated among the theosophists.

The Rosenkreuzers did not allow women in their organiza- tion. Steiner wrote a book about them which Hilma studied. Why? Did Steiner keep Hilma at arm’s length because he was influenced by the Rosenkreuzers? Or was he afraid that Hilma would outperform his rather mediocre and bizarre spiritual artwork? Thomasine Andersson got to know Hilma in 1913. She used to nurse Hilma’s sick mother. Together they moved into a residence in 1920 when Hilma’s mother died, and they stayed together for the rest of their life. Together they visited Steiners Goetheanum in Dornach, Switzerland.

From the series «The Dove» The picture above shows possibly a dove or a human partly dissolved, clamped on a cross and may perhaps be interpreted as what happens to peace and freedom when ruled by Christianity?

The image on the right has the zodiac sign for the Lion, Scorpio (Hilma), Virgo and the Libra. What are the two tiny figures in the center of the «planet»?

PAGE 20 Hilma af Klint by Finn Jacob Jacobsen Table of content page 1 «A hundred years ago, Hilma af Klint painted works for the future.» Iris Müller-Westermann is curator of Moderna Museet in Stockholm and editor of the extensive catalog that was made for the Klint exhibitions in 2013 - 2015. She writes that Hilma believed that when she painted, she was guided by beings from a higher sphere of consciousness, and that these beings spoke to her and conveyed messages through her. Müller-Westermann believes in the spirits and wants to place Hilma’s work in a dualistic world. But if one remo- ves the religious superstructure, and instead places Hilma’s sources in her subconscious mind, as Carl Gustav Jung does with his sources, her achievements reach the right propor- tions, and she emerges as innovative with a magnificent talent and an incredible creative energy. Hilma is a genuine artist who could safely have signed her own unique works. They being «maps of internally experienced transformation processes» is, in my opinion, placing a shadow over Hilma’s artistic talent.

Iris Müller-Westermann writes that Hilma fully pursued what she believed in. She was convinced of the importance of her art and spent all her energy on the tasks. The proof is both the radical content of the pictures and that she painted in monumental formats. Hilma af Klint’s work is linked to a theme that has always been essential for people of all cultu- res, namely the attempt to understand the world and one’s own role in it. But – didn’t she paint commanded by spirits that gave her both motifs and formats? She never knew From the series «The Dove» beforehand what the works would be like. Automatic work requires neither self-esteem nor overall understanding. Müller-Westermann and others claim that the reason why Hilma did not show her works, was that she believed her works would not be understood until long after her death.

PAGE 21 Hilma af Klint by Finn Jacob Jacobsen Table of content page 1 About the testament’s twenty-year clause There is supposedly in her testament a clause that her works should not be shown until twenty years after her death. There is no such clause in her testament. But there exists a note that «works to be opened 20 years after my death are marked with (+x)» This refers probably to some notebooks that she had a hard time understanding what she had written decades earlier.

«Entartete Kunst» The Nazis in Germany organized an exhibition of «Entar- tete Kunst» on the initiative of Joseph Goebbels in 1937 in Munich to show the German people what would not be tole- rated as art in the Third Reich. The poster for the exhibition promised «mental putrefaction, illusory imaginations and insanity». The exhibition was a tremendous success. Two million people showed up to see works in the categories of Expressionism, Dadaism and Surrealism of Ernst, Kirchner, Klee, Corinth, Gies, Müller, Marc and Kandinsky among many others, about 600 works, some in the same style as Hilma af Klint’s works. At the same time in Munich, the Nazis organized an exhibition of «approved» art, «Grosse Deutsche Kunstausstellung», visited by only 400 000 people.

«Entartete Kunst» was shown later in several German cities such as Berlin, Leipzig, Düsseldorf, Hamburg and Salzburg. The Nazis hired actors who mixed with the audience and loudly expressed their contempt for this rotten art and the degenerate artists who had performed it.

From August to November 1937, 16558 works were seized from museums and private collections. Many of the artists, especially those with Jewish descent, were banned from painting and exhibiting. Some of the seized works were shown at the Munich exhibition, others were sold abroad to obtain foreign currency.

PAGE 22 Hilma af Klint by Finn Jacob Jacobsen Table of content page 1 In March 1939, 1004 oil paintings and sculptures and 3825 watercolors, drawings and graphics were destroyed by the Nazis. Hilma must have heard about this. I assume that she wrote her testament in the late thirties or in the first year of WW2. Hitler’s Germany was then well established and it was probable that The Nazi influence in Sweden would grow beyond the sympathy they had established in parts of the Swedish population. Hilma did not want to display her works for fear that they would be confiscated and destroyed immediately or in the near future. I’m sure she added the clause of 20 years in hoping that the Nazi madness would have ended by then. She feared that her life’s accomplish- ments would be burned or thrown on the garbage dump.

Nowhere in Hilma’s written material have I seen that she thought the world was not ready for her art. Rather, she was unsure if what she had created was good enough for a discerning art audience and for the anthroposophists. After a «grausame Salbe» from Rudolf Steiner in 1908, her pro- Josef Goebbels visits the exhibition in Berlin duction stopped for a long time. Her self-esteem got a set back, and when she started painting again, her motifs had changed.

In 1914, Hilma presented to Rudolf Steiner plans for building a spiral shaped temple on the island of Ven in Öresund south of Helsingborg for her series of paintings «The Road to the Temple». This shows that she had quite specific ideas on showing her works to an audience. I think Steiner understood more of Hilma’s art than he would admit. I think he feared that her grand temple project would reduce at- tention for his planned Goetheanum and reduce his reputa- tion as an artist in the eyes of the anthroposophists. Seeing what he has accomplished as a painter of decorations in his «temple,» it is easy to understand his fear that a woman should surpass him. He advised Hilma to shelve her Temple project until his Goetheanum was finnished.

PAGE 23 Hilma af Klint by Finn Jacob Jacobsen Table of content page 1 Rudolf Steiner´s decoration of Goetheanum in Dornach in Switzerland Influence from Rudolf Steiner In 1914, Hilma dreamt that she was in Rudolf Steiner’s room. She was searching for something, but had to escape from the room because she got blind when she was in there. Plainly this shows the devastating effect Steiner had on her self-esteem. In the early 1920’s she noted she would like to ask Steiner: «What should I do with all my great paintings in Sweden? Are they useful for the anthroposophical society? I myself do not have enough knowledge to explain the works. If you, Herr Doktor, is not coming to Sweden, perhaps the best thing to do is to burn them.»

Despite Steiner’s negative attitude, Hilma made several inquiries to anthroposophers in Switzerland if they wanted any of her works. As far as I know, some of her early natu- ralistic watercolors ended up in Switzerland. Steiner may have sought advice from the spirits of the sunken continent, Atlantis, whom he regularly had contact with. Maybe they would not have any competition from Hilma’s spirits?

Åke Fant, antroposophist, art expert and author of a book on Hilma, describes her ability to predict the future, her pre-cognition. Fant has been a driving force in bringing Hilma´s works out in the open. Hilma’s nephew Erik af Klint told that as a young girl, Hilma saw two coffins in her room, each with a year number. Later in life she became seriously ill these years. The story is probably told several decades afterwards, the mind readily adjusts to make stories fit.

Hilma was skeptical in meeting with unknown people and frequently sought advice from her higher spirits. As an example, when she wanted to contact a certain woman, she had to find a dual straw of rye, which is a rarity. She found From the series «US» several. Such light obsessions are easily recognizable for all From the series «The Dove» of us without seeing it as an advice from higher beings.

PAGE 24 Hilma af Klint by Finn Jacob Jacobsen Table of content page 1 Talent for prophecies? Blitz in London? In 1914, Hilma reportedly realized that something terrible was going to happen. Well, who among informed people, did not feel that in 1914? She saw a vision of the German nation as a giant statue that collapsed, and behind it the Russian cavalry were ready to attack. Not much prophetic skills would be required to predict this. How she identified German and Russian is not described, and her kind of visions are numerous throughout time, something Hilma certainly knew with her close contacts to spiritism. John’s revelations in the Bible may be a good template for such visions.

Hilma made two watercolors in 1932, one allegedly showing the “Blitz” against London in 1940-41, the second water- color showing war at sea in the Mediterranean. With a vivid imagination and in hindsight, this may well be one of several possible interpretations. Åke Fant also believes that Hilma in 1926 gave sensational statements on the brain’s function. She believed that the right and left hemispheres have dif- ferent functions. The brain’s appearance with two halves was already well known, and Emanuel Swedenborg had 150 years earlier come up with sensationally correct descriptions of how the brain operates, including a functional division between the two hemispheres. This was certainly something Hilma knew, as Swedenborg was an inspirator for the Theo- sophists.

Swedenborg’s spiritual crisis happened in 1745. Prior to that, he was a recognized scientist and engineer, who probably was familiar with earlier knowledge of chemistry, mechanics, astronomy and physiology, not least in the form of alchemy. Hilma associates the brain’s division to her sim- From the series «The Seven Stars» plified perceptions of the roles of men and women placing them in each brain half. Recent brain research shows that the clear division of functioning in the two halves is less dis- tinct. Many features are shared by both brain halves. War at sea in the Mediterranean?

PAGE 25 Hilma af Klint by Finn Jacob Jacobsen Table of content page 1 Therefore, the higher spirits through Hilma cannot bring anything sensationally forward, as Hilma’s revelations were already known from the time of Swedenborg, and at best, was rather imprecise. Once again, revelations from spirits never bring forth knowledge that is not already familiar to the psychic, consciously or unconsciously.

Hilma also predicted that music would change from a 7-tone system to a 12-tone system. She thought this would increase the tempo of the musical experience. I do not know if Arnold Schönberg agrees with the shift in tempo, but 12- tone composition technique became a reality, even if it did not become the pillar of contemporary music. Hilma probably chose 12 as it is a sacred number, but so is also 7 in the ordinary tone scale.

«Christianity» «Muslim points of view»

«Jewis and atheistic point of view» «Budha´s point of view in earthly life»

PAGE 26 Hilma af Klint by Finn Jacob Jacobsen Table of content page 1 Georgiana Houghton (1814-1884) She was a well-schooled arts painter, but she quit painting when her sister died. She was closely tied to her, and grief caused Georgina to find interest in spiritualism and contact with the spirits of the dead, probably to get in touch with her sister. She explained that the spirits belong to dead people. In 1859 she decided to try to become a psychic medium. Together with her mother she sat at a round table holding hands with her. For months they would sit like that until contact was finally achieved. Sundays were the best time with the least influence from evil powers.

She started painting automatically, directed at first by deceased artists, later by higher spirits as archangels. Shapes, colors and positions have specific meanings in her works.

”In the execution of the Drawings my hand has been entirely guided «The Eye of God» by Spirits, no idea being formed in my own mind as to what was Georgina Houghton going to be produced...”

This is the same driving force and source that inspired and empowered Hilma. On the rear of her paintings, Georgina explains the symbolism in her works in complicated and rather unspecific terms. She wants to clarify the message of each work and name the spirit that had led her through the creation of her art. She claimed that the descriptions were authored by the spirits, and she merely wrote them down as automatic writing. The same spirit that guided her hand through the work of art also provided the explanation in writing. Most of the explanations have quotes from the Bible or refer to it. Some explanations refer to graphic shapes as specific symbols. In «Glory be to God,» the Peace of God is a spiral at the bottom of the drawing, «The Lord’s Long Suffe- ring» is a number of overlapping shapes in the middle of the lower part. How this would bring clarity to the understanding of the world of the spirits, is hard to understand. «The Holy Trinity» PAGE 27 Hilma af Klint by Finn Jacob Jacobsen Table of content page 1 «Glory be to God» The wonderful powers of the invisible intelligences appear to be rather dim and unstructured in their messages to humanity, which is to be expected from a brain that produces tableaus outside of conscious control.

For Georgiana, it was essential to establish that true spiritism is inextricably linked to the Christian faith and the Bible’s texts, first and foremost the New Testament and the doctrine of the Holy Trinity.

She made a catalog of her works that included the explanations. In 1871, she personally arranged a large exhibition in London with 155 works displayed in borrowed frames. She was present every day for the four months duration of the exhibition to be able to explain to the visitors the meaning of the works. The usual reactions from the audience were that they had trouble understanding. The spiritist publicati- on «Medium and Daybreak» wrote: «We cannot say anything about the explanations given in the catalog, they exceed our comprehension.»

The exhibition was a financial disaster. Only one work was sold. It was hard to be both a spiritist, artist and woman in London in the 1870s.

Interestingly, Georgina’s spirals in various shapes are also forms that Hilma af Klint uses. And similar elements are found in many works “guided by spirits», also contemporary works. They indicate that the guidance stems from brains of «The Eye of the Lord» rear view roughly the same construction that produce similar fantasies «The Eye of the Lord» through a filter of personal and religious knowledge.

PAGE 28 Hilma af Klint by Finn Jacob Jacobsen Table of content page 1 Modernism Hilma’s works predated the breakthrough of abstract art in the early 1900’s with famous artists such as Wassily Kan- dinsky (1866-1944), Piet Mondrian (1872-1944) and Kazimir Malevitj (1878-1935). For those who enjoy coincidences: Kandinsky, Mondrian, Munch and Hilma die in the same year, in 1944, and the author of this feature was born that year.

Edvard Munch painted his strong expressionist images ten years earlier than Hilma’s first paintings for the Temple. Hilma has probably seen some of Munch’s works. In April and May 1889, Munch organized his first solo exhibition in the Students’ Society in Kristiania (now Oslo) showing 63 paintings and 46 drawings. In 1892 he was invited to exhibit at the Berlin Art Association. After violent discussion, the exhibition was closed after a week. Munch’s «scandalous exhibition» from Berlin was shown the following year in Copen- hagen and in several German cities as well as in Kristiania. At the end of the 19th century, Munch worked with a series of paintings known today as the “Frieze of Life”. The series includes his most important works, among them “Scream”. The fuss surrounding Munch’s art and life was probably well known to Hilma and other Swedish artists.

Hilma’s fellow citizen, Ernst Josephson, met spiritism on the island of Bréhat outside of Brittany in France in the summer of 1888. He had lost family members, had acquired syphi- You have been Abraham, lis in his youth, and after struggling with opposition in the You have been David, Royal Academy in Stockholm and with artist colleagues, he You have been Petrus settled in poverty on Bréhat. Spiritism and syphilis made the apostle of Jesu Christi, him mentally ill. He would draw while in trance and he sig- You have been Horatius, ned his works with names of old masters. He also wrote a And you have been plethora of poems and was convinced he was a Messiah who Ernst Abraham Josephson would change everything and everyone. He soon traveled and now you are an angel home to Sweden, stayed some time at an asylum and then in Heaven. settled in Stockholm. His works were exhibited in 1893.

PAGE 29 Hilma af Klint by Finn Jacob Jacobsen Table of content page 1 Wassily Kandinsky established in 1911 a group of artists called Die Blaue Reiter, the Blue Riders. The purpose of the group was to reveal the associative properties of colors, lines and compositions. They explored various sources such as Johann Wolfgang von Goethe’s and Phillip Otto Runge’s color theory, Art Nouveau and Rudolf Steiner’s Theosophy. The group consisted of Kandinsky, Franz Marc, Gabriele Münter (Kandinsky’s mistress) Alexej von Jawlensky and Marianne von Werefkin. In 1915 and 1916, works of Marc, Münther and Kandinsky were shown in Stockholm. It is likely that Hilma saw these works.

The foundation «Hilma af Klints verk» manages Hilma’s works today. Åke Fant is member of the board.They claim there is no evidence that Hilma knew of the development of early modernism, while Iris Müller-Westermann says that Kandinsky «Compositon VII» 1913 Hilma had seen works by both Josephson and Munch. Kandinsky and Münther in Stockholm 1916 The foundation also claims that Hilma had been strictly told by «The High Ones» never to show her works to anyone. They claim Hilma was aware that her works belonged in the future. Despite this, Hilma tried to show her art publicly, she planned for her temple at Ven, and Rudolf Steiner was asked to review her works in 1908.

In the feature about Hilma af Klint in the Magazine Kunst- forum No. 1, 2016, Lina Launhardt makes some observations that I interpret differently. Lina claims that Hilma strongly wanted to «break down and reorganize the traditions of painting». But Hilma’s project was to produce images and text delivered by spiritual instructors, «The High Ones». She claimed that she had no control over motif and presentation in the series “Primordial Chaos”, “The Ten Largest”, “Evolu- tion” and “The Seven Stars”. That is why her works are not signed with her name.

PAGE 30 Hilma af Klint by Finn Jacob Jacobsen Table of content page 1 From the series «Altar Piece» The notion that she «worked secretly for a future audience» and did not want to show her works, is an effort to make myths from her art. Hilma, on the contrary, wanted to show her works to Rudolf Steiner, who turned his back on her.

Carl Gustav Jung A signature of art from a free running subconscious mind is often symmetrical motifs. We find it with almost anyone who creates «inspired» visual art. Hilma painted several symmetrical motifs, and so did Carl Gustav Jung. He made several works that in symbolism and appearance are remi- Illustration from the magazine niscent of Hilmas. When Lina Launhardt refers to a cycle of «Kunstforum» no. 1 2016 images in Jung’s “Red Book”, that are «mandala-like with shapes ranging from organic to abstract geometric», some illustrated in the magazine, I wonder if she knows what a mandala looks like. The illustrations in the article show Illustrations from Jung´s «Red Book» strictly right / left-symmetrical figures, characteristic of many «inspired» images and artists, but the mandala’s circle is quite absent. The rest of the series is characterized by the same strict symmetry with geometric shapes interwoven with strange letters. No mandala there.

What Lina is not mentioning about Jung’s “Red Book”, which has direct relevance to Hilma’s work, is a mania to create written text, which in Jung’s book is expressed as strangely beautiful illuminated manuscripts, some in Latin language. Hilma’s notebooks are filled with «inspired» texts and in- structions from her spiritual masters. For both, this shows how a subconscious mind in «free flow» may find controlled expressions in a psyche that does not relapse into mental ill- ness. The fact that the content of the writings reveals not- hing more than what can be expected from the intellectual knowledge base of the person, consciously or subconscious- ly, clearly indicates that both Jung’s «Philemon» and Hilma’s «The High Ones» are voices from the subconscious mind of the individual and not from spirits in other dimensions.

PAGE 31 Hilma af Klint by Finn Jacob Jacobsen Table of content page 1 The unconscious mind Jung’s “collective unconscious mind” is a way of explaining that we are all equipped with the same brain structure with the same functionality and basic content, archetypes, a common mental platform, an elemental operating system. Jung said, «The self takes shape as a hidden entity consis- ting of all conscious and unconscious parts of the psyche.» In a corner of the self, the idea of God or gods exists as an explanation of what is beyond comprehension.

Jung and Hilma’s channels to subconsciousness are quite dif- ferent. At the age of seventeen, Hilma sought the spiritists to establish contact with her sister who died at the age of ten. After years of attempts and preparations, and as a mature woman (34) among «The Five,» she heard voices in her head, several named people. She had deliberately searched this contact with the “hereafter,» and she had intellectual strength to handle this without tipping over into madness.

Jung did not seek supernatural contact. A mentally ill mother and probably a lack of close relationship as a child, laid the foundation for mental disorders later in life. He collaborated with Sigmund Freud for several years, but a tremendous breach among them led to a mental breakdown. He experienced violent hallucinations and heard voices in his head. But he managed to keep an accurate logbook of his mental «spectacles». He spent sixteen years trying to understand this vast material, assembled and arranged it in a large protocol bound in red leather. This was not pub- lished until 2009 as “The Red Book”. Jung’s psychic jour- ney went hand in hand with religious mystics like Hildegard von Bingen, Emanuel Swedenborg, Prophet Muhammad, Art Brut artists such as Adolf Wölfli, Augustine Lesage, Henri Darger and artists like Ernst Josephson, Carl Fredrik Hill, Victor Hugo, Edward Munch and my artist painter, Bendik Illustrations from Jung´s «Red Book» Riis. Inspiration and creative pressure from the subconscious mind is in no way unique to Hilma af Klint.

PAGE 32 Hilma af Klint by Finn Jacob Jacobsen Table of content page 1 «The Tree of Knowledge» In the section «Ecstatic Realities,» Lina Launhardt gives an interpretation of the series «Tree of Knowledge» as a metaphor for Yggdrasil (an immense mythical tree that connects the nine worlds in Norse cosmology). The works in this series may be interpreted to mean almost anything. But Hilma has given some hints: A text on number two describes the sub- ject or parts of it like «A worm turned around with the head locked in an upwards position».

The main shapes in the series are a circle at the bottom and the lower half of a snake’s head above the circle. Two spiral forms start at the bottom of the circle in a double snail house, two of Hilma’s basic motives, one «line of truth,» the other «line of love.» Both end in the snake´s head, the line of love in a black and a white bird kissing each other, the same hint that we find in the «Swan» series. The line of truth is broken on its way by the same birds that are now pursuing each other, and the line ends in a fusion of the two birds. At the top, in the position of the snake head’s mouth, a cup is filled with a dark liquid with two bright objects in it. Twelve dark objects surround the cup, and from these twelve rays of light spread around the snake’s head. Twel- ve is a sacred number, zodiac signs have twelve symbols. Zodiac signs are found in several of Hilma’s works. In figures number three and four, the cup is moved down to a heart placed in the root of the snake head. The same twelve objects emit twelve rays of light, but this time six upwards From the series «Tree of Knowledge» and six downwards.

PAGE 33 Hilma af Klint by Finn Jacob Jacobsen Table of content page 1 Again we see the two birds, but now they are similar in appearance and seem to fight each other. The circle form has got three decorated planes, the ether plane, the astral plane and the mental plane. An upside-down snake head looks quite similar to the shape of a penis, the «tree trunk» may be the penis shaft, and it is quite easy to connect eroticism to many of the shapes and to the birds in these works. Thus, interpretations will be diverse, and Yggdrasil with an elevator to other dimensions may not be the most obvious interpretation?

From the series «Tree of Knowledge»

PAGE 34 Hilma af Klint by Finn Jacob Jacobsen Table of content page 1 «The Dove» Lina Launhardt claims that Hilma’s mission was «a unity of everything that exists». But wasn’t it the unity between the male and female Hilma sought to understand? Lina conclu- des with a strange wording: «-- whether we are able to find a language in order to communicate on the extraordinary, too ordinary experiences that Klint added to her works.»

The motifs in «The Dove» series alternates between figurative and geometric shapes. The geometric shapes are shown on pages 19 and 20. A white dove is visible in a few pictures. It symbolizes peace and the Holy Ghost. Hilma’s dove tum- bles towards the ground. In one image, one hand seems to be tearing off one wing, in the next picture, both wings are crumbled, stripped and spilled with blood. Two hands touch the wings in this motif. In the dove’s tail are three characters, one man, one woman and one child, all with glories. The sacred family, Joseph, Mary and Jesus?

To me, this picture is a summary of Hilma’s life and artistry. The strong connection to a spiritual world, and a lost dream of a union of the female and the male, shown with the Holy Family and the duck’s yellow and blue claws. Yellow for the male, blue for the female, or yellow for the highest intellect and blue for the pure religious feeling? The peace dove falling towards the ground, and dark hands against a threatening gray background rip off its wings. The picture was painted in 1915 after the long-lasting pause that occurred after Rudolf Steiner’s brutal rejection of her art in 1908 and after the spirits no longer directly instructed her. Now she was conscious of her motif and her choices. I interpret the dove to be Hilma and the hands to be her former guides, «The High Ones», who did not manage to give her a founda- From the series «The Dove» tion for worldly happiness or recognized artistry.

PAGE 35 Hilma af Klint by Finn Jacob Jacobsen Table of content page 1 The Temple on Ven Still Hilma’s works have not been given premises worthy of her large production. There appears to be a conflict between anthroposophists and heirs that prevent a permanent solution. Hilma herself had specific wishes for how her art should appear in a «temple». I have no sympathy for the role of anthroposophists in this. Rudolf Steiner was the one who put an end to Hilma’s career as an artist by turning his back to her when she wanted him to review her works. He told her that what she did was not suitable for the anthroposophers’ (Steiners) artistic views. Steiner was, in my opinion, a mediocre artist, something the decoration of Goetheanum shows (similar to the roof paintings in the Cul- ture House in Ytterjärna). He realized that Hilma’s paintings would outperform his own. My view is that the anthroposophers’ general rejection of Hilma disqualify them for a role in the location, design and funding of a temple for Hilma.

I have discovered a project that could become the realiza- tion that Hilma af Klint wanted and could bring the conflict about the placement of her art out of deadlock. The project was designed by Åsa Landahl at Chalmers University of Tech- nology in 2013. The snail house embodiment in the proposed temple is central to Hilma’s works, and a temple without this shape is unthinkable. Hilma had a proposal for a temple on Ven built on the snail housing. The Landahl Temple is mo- dern and innovative, while maintaining Hilma’s form expres- sion.

Text and layout: Find Jacobsen, ex NRK employee, 73 years, retired photographer, editor, journalist. March 2018. Author and producer of biography of the Norwegian Artist Painter Bendik Riis in 2011, purchased by the Norwegian Cultural Council in 2012. www.bendikriis.no

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