Hilma af Klint (1862–1944) emerged after Europe had overturned centuries of tradition, when Western societies reduced the significance of monarchy and eschewed the combination of Church and State in favor of a progressive, secular Modern world. The “spiritual voice” became an outsider while points of prophecy became unique, marginalized endeavors that were accompanied with a turn away from daily life. Many artists of the Modern era were equally drawn into the ascendance of a once-untouchable belief system, pursuing the study of Theosophy and the occult. By reviving the detached character of Romanticism, Modern art connected to something more up-and-coming, creating an impression of the Ding-an-sich even though the representations were not reflective of a lived reality.
As seen in Paintings for the Future Hilma af Klint began as a Naturalist who made very detailed representations of flowers, plants and insects with the very fluid medium of water color. The fine details seen throughout this small selection of work from the 1890s was balanced out with a large oil painting from 1888 titled Summer Landscape. Throughout this composition the pastoral setting of a rural landscape shows tall, green foliage and a brown dirt road that extend far off, into the painting’s distant background.
