A Retrospective View Of Abstraction, With A Spice Of The Occult
By Emelie Harrison. For Art History 231: Framing the Viewer: 20th Century Art. Semester One 2019. Grade: A+, 95%
Between the middle of the nineteenth century and the turn of the twentieth century the world experienced drastic change. Darwin’s theory of evolution was published in 1859 and shook the foundations of the Christian church.[1] The establishment of new scientific and philosophical thought transpired in the Western world. Significant scientific discoveries were made during this time period that altered the notion that what we see with the naked eye represents reality. Heinrich Hertz established the existence of electromagnetic waves in 1886 and Wilhelm Röntgen discovered the X-ray in 1895, proving there are invisible forces at work within our universe and once established boundaries can be penetrated.[2] Today the art historical canon acknowledges Wassily Kandinsky as the father of abstraction. He lived through this time period, witnessing these paradigm shifts and died in the year 1944. That same year another artist died, one who deserves retrospective recognition as an abstract pioneer, a female artist named Hilma af Klint.[3] Drawing inspiration from Theosophy and occult beliefs, as well as séances and music, they replaced representation with abstraction through engaging with special types of thought and experience.
The ways in which abstract art engages with special kinds of thought and experience is a provocative topic, as many scholars have a tendency to dismiss the artist’s fascination with the occult; perhaps because of contemporary perspectives that occult beliefs are pseudoscientific or altogether nonsense.[4] However, these concepts are integral to the understanding of abstract art and the processes that enabled artistic innovation.[5] Both af Klint and Kandinsky were interested in Theosophist philosophy and these elements are reflected in their art.[6] In No.3 Altarpiece, 1915 (see figure 1) af Klint utilises the theosophists emblem, a six-pointed star surrounded by a circle, symbolising the universe contained within the limitations of space and time. The Altar Paintings were the last series in Paintings for the Temple, a commission af Klint received from what she believed to be a higher spirit. These paintings deal with conceptions of the spirit being divided into matter and multiplicity, then our experiences in this world and finally unity.[7] The cycle of life takes place in af Klint’s series The Ten Largest, where we see her attempt to capture the adult spirit in painting No. 7 Adulthood, 1907 (see Figure 2). In this way it could argued that her work is a living being, in a sense. af Klint’s paintings however are not concerned with pure abstraction of colour and form, they instead attempt to give shape to invisible contexts and make them visible. Like Blavatsky and Steiner, af Klint and Kandinsky adhered to the idea of two realms, a visible and an invisible one.[8] The vast majority of viewers who see Kandinsky’s abstract work today would focus on the reductionist qualities, but not register the attempt to evoke immaterial or metaphysical reality, with hopes of elevating the audience’s spiritual awareness, such as in Picture on Light Ground, 1916 (see figure 3).[9] Another critical influence for Kandinsky was a performance by Wagner in 1896. His experience united painting and music, which he utilised in Composition VII, 1913 (see figure 4).[10] Kandinsky stated the very word composition carried an almost religious significance for him, “It called forth in me an inner vibration. Subsequently, I made it my aim in life to paint a composition.”[11]
Figure 1. Hilma af Klint, No. 3 Altarpiece, 1915 (oil on canvas, 320 x 240cm), Stockholm, Moderna Museet.
The way Hilma af Klint executed her work is closely associated with automatic drawing, years before Surrealists conducted such experiments. She participated in séances with a group of women, “The Five.” These sittings were supposed to teach them how to trust messages and reject learned patterns of thought. af Klint described this process:
“The pictures were painted directly through me, without any preliminary drawings and with great force. I had no idea what the paintings were supposed to depict, nevertheless I worked swiftly and surely without changing a single brushstroke.[12]”
Forms such as these can be seen in No. 7 Adulthood, composed of free-flowing, undulating lines, contrasted with diagrammatic lines and symmetrical configurations. Stylized script punctuates the lilac background, correlating to further levels of metaphorical understanding. The painting is over three meters in height and two meters wide, disproving the notion that women could not generate new creative art on a grand scale. Suggesting the partial involvement of ‘higher beings’ should not detract from af Klint’s skill, as guidance of spirits and mediumistic art was widespread in Europe during this period.[13] She maintained that she understood the creative process and had greater influence on her later paintings such as No.3 Altarpiece. The shapes are more defined, clear and geometrical, with greater detail, such as the small Theosophist emblem in the centre of the golden circle.[14] The star consists of two triangles, one pointing upwards and the other downwards. These two directions are indicative of theosophist evolution, when matter becomes refined achieving a higher level of spirituality and the spiritual descent into matter.[15] This painting also encompasses the division of the human soul into a masculine half and a feminine half, green representing the unity of the two striving to become one again.[16]Yellow and blue are contrasted in the colour wheel and in this composition. Hilma af Klint stipulated in her will that her works were not to be shown until at least twenty years after her death. Art historians have hypothesised that this may have been due to her position in society as a woman but her writings describe a world not yet ready to understand the spiritual elements of her work.[17]
Figure 2. Hilma af Klint, No. 7 Adulthood, 1907 (oil on canvas, 320 x 240cm), Stockhom, Moderna Museet.
Composition VII is commonly cited as the pinnacle of Kandinsky’s work, predating World War I. A hurricane of colours and swirling lines convey veiled iconography, embodying Kandinsky’s hope for a new spiritual epoch.[18] His process involves working on and thinking of the whole canvas virtually at once. The underlying composition is organic, developing outward from several focal points, similar to how new skin grows over a wound. In his treatise, On the Spiritual in Art, Kandinsky emphasises “inner necessity,” aligned with the biological as opposed to mechanical.[19] The colours have inter-relationships such as the oranges repeated several times. This, together with the direction of the lines, suggests movement with only the slightest semblance of a sunset in the top left corner of the painting. This work exemplifies Kandinsky’s belief that painting could evoke sounds the way music called to mind certain colours and forms.[20] In Picture on Light Ground he employs pure painting resulting from combinations of colour tones and essentialised linear elements, determined by the internal necessity of the artist to capture an energy signature or essence.[21] We can distinguish more of a centre in this composition, following the geometric spiral element, perhaps slightly indicative of an embryonic form.
Figure 3. Wassily Kandinsky, Picture on Light Ground, 1916 (oil on canvas, 100 x 78cm), Paris, Musée National d’Art Moderne.
Kandinsky believed that when you discard memetic forms of the everyday and simply use pictorial means or elements, such as in pure painting, it inspires the viewer to contemplate the abstract.[22] His painting Picture on Light Ground evokes thoughts such as what it means to be alive and to be part of the universe, striking an emotional chord in the spectator, attempting to bridge the gap between the visible and invisible.[23] He wanted us to experience Composition VII like a piece of music, with a push and pull of rhythms, colour and movement emerging at different times throughout the viewing. This results in a dreamlike quality and more levels of potential interpretation.[24] His choice in colour and tumultuous lines give the viewer an intense emotional response, likely due to his expressionist background while Hilma af Klint’s paintings are made up of softer undulating lines and large spaces of harmonic colour tones, that bare influence from her earlier botanical studies and paintings. This gives the viewer a calmer feeling allowing deep contemplation. No. 7 Adulthood is abundant with a generative quality, the viewer becomes privy to the dance of life, giving the possibility to contemplate birth, adulthood, death and life itself. In general, it can be said that her works are intended to expand our understanding of the connection between mankind and the universe. I believe her work also embodies qualities found in art of the sublime, which Nicolas Boileau-Despréaux defined as, “not strictly speaking something which is proven or demonstrated, but a marvel, which seizes one, strikes one, and makes one feel.”[25] Hilma af Klint left it up to the viewer how they decipher her work, now that it has finally been uncovered it is up to them to interpret their own spiritual journey.
Figure 4. Wassily Kandinsky, Composition VII, 1913 (oil on canvas, 300 x 200cm), Moscow, State Tretyakov Gallery.
Kandinsky has long been considered the father of abstraction and the works of Hilma af Klint now cement her as a pioneer of abstract art. However, it is yet to be seen how conventional thought will embrace her in the art historical canon. Abstract art engages with special kinds of thought and experience through the artist’s practice, beliefs and experiences. For pioneers like af Klint and Kandinsky it was the concept of portraying the invisible, whether it be spiritual, musical or the very essence of life itself, that helped forge the way to an abstract art. This in turn provokes the audience’s engagement with abstract concepts and allows the viewer to draw their own unique conclusion from their paintings, whether that be an observation of purely lines and colours on a canvas or perhaps existential concepts like the essence of existence itself.
[1] Hubert van den Berg, Marianne Ølholm, Irmeli Hautamäki, Benedikt Hjartarson, Torben Jelsbak, Rikard Schönström, and Per Stounbjerg. A Cultural History of the Avant-garde in the Nordic Countries 1900-1925. Vol. 1. Rodopi, 2012. 588.
[2] I. Müller-Westermann, “Paintings for the Future: Hilma af Klint–A Pioneer of Abstraction in Seclusion,” in Hilma af Klint – A Pioneer of Abstraction, eds. I Müller-Westermann and Jo Widoff (Ostfildern: Hatje Cantz, 2013): 39.
[3] Tessel M. Bauduin and Henrik Johnsson, eds. The Occult in Modernist Art, Literature, and Cinema. Springer International Publishing, 2018. 11.
[4] Ibid., 25.
[5] Christopher Partridge, ed., The Occult World (New York: Routledge, 2014), 429.
[6] David Hopkins, After modern art 1945-2000 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), 88.
[7] Müller-Westermann, “Paintings for the Future,” 42.
[8] C. de Zegher, B. L. Ettinger, E. Finch, and H. Teicher. “3xAbstraction. New methods of drawing. Hilma af Klint. Emma Kunz. Agnes Marin.” The Drawing Center Publications 258 (2005): 98.
[9] Tessel M. Bauduin and Henrik Johnsson, The Occult in Modernist Art, 28.
[10] Wassily Kandinsky, quoted in Magdalena Dabrowski, “Kandinsky compositions: The music of the spheres,” MoMA 19 (1995): 11.
[11] Ibid., 10.
[12] Müller-Westermann, “Paintings for the Future”, 39.
[13] Partridge, The Occult World, 429.
[14] Van den Berg et al., A Cultural History of the Avant-garde, 593.
[15] Müller-Westermann, “Paintings for the Future,” 33.
[16] Ibid., 41.
[17] Van den Berg et al., “A Cultural History of the Avant-garde,” 594.
[18] Dabrowski, “Kandinsky Compositions,” 13.
[19] Vivian E. Barnett and Peter H. Barnett, “The originality of Kandinsky’s compositions,” The Visual Computer 5, no. 4 (1989): 208.
[20] Ibid., 207.
[21] Dabrowski, “Kandinsky compositions,”11.
[22] Dabrowski, “Kandinsky compositions,”11.
[23] Ibid.
[24] Ibid.
[25]Lydia Hamlett, “Longinus and the Baroque Sublime in Britain,” in The Art of the Sublime, eds., Nigel Llewellyn and Christine Riding, Tate Research Publication, 2013. Accessed May 12, 2019. https://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/the-sublime/lydia-hamlett-longinus-and-the-baroque-sublime-in-britain-r1108498.
Bibliography:
Barnett, Vivian E., and Peter H. Barnett. “The originality of Kandinsky’s compositions.” The Visual Computer 5, no. 4, 1989.
Bauduin, Tessel M., and Henrik Johnsson, eds. The Occult in Modernist Art, Literature, and Cinema. Springer International Publishing, 2018.
Dabrowski, Magdalena. “Kandinsky compositions: The music of the spheres.” MoMA 19, 1995.
Hamlett, Lydia. “Longinus and the Baroque Sublime in Britain.” In The Art of the Sublime, edited by Nigel Llewellyn and Christine Riding. Tate Research Publication, 2013. Accessed May 12, 2019. https://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/the-sublime/lydia-hamlett-longinus-and-the-baroque-sublime-in-britain-r1108498.
Hopkins, David. After modern art 1945-2000. Oxford University Press, 2000.
Müller-Westermann, I. “Paintings for the Future: Hilma af Klint–A Pioneer of Abstraction in Seclusion.” In Hilma af Klint–A Pioneer of Abstraction, edited by I Müller-Westermann and Jo Widoff (Ostfildern: Hatje Cantz, 2013).
Partridge, Christopher, ed. The occult world. New York: Routledge, 2014.
Van den Berg, Hubert, Marianne Ølholm, Irmeli Hautamäki, Benedikt Hjartarson, Torben Jelsbak, Rikard Schönström, and Per Stounbjerg. A Cultural History of the Avant-garde in the Nordic Countries 1900-1925. Vol. 1. Rodopi, 2012.
Zegher, C. de, B. L. Ettinger, E. Finch, and H. Teicher. “3xAbstraction. New methods of drawing. Hilma af Klint. Emma Kunz. Agnes Marin.” The Drawing Center Publications258 (2005): 1966-2005.
About the Author:
Emelie is a second year student majoring in Art History and Psychology. She is interested in photography, modern and contemporary art.
