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The Ten Largest, No. 7, Adulthood
Hilma af Klint · Surrealism, Dada & Abstract
- Artist
- Hilma af Klint (1862–1944)
- Date
- 1907
- Dimensions
- 328 x 240 cm
- Medium
- Tempera on paper mounted on canvas
- Location
- Hilma af Klint Foundation, Stockholm, Sweden
This huge painting is filled with floating spirals, loops, petals and circles in pink, orange, yellow and blue on a warm red-orange ground. There is no recognisable object, only a dance of organic shapes and symbolic signs.
A closer look
The Ten Largest are a series of ten monumental paintings that Hilma af Klint created in 1907, representing the four stages of human life: childhood, youth, adulthood and old age. Adulthood is shown through rich, mature colours and complex, interlocking forms that suggest growth, flowering and union. Af Klint, deeply involved in spiritualism and Theosophy, believed she received the commission for these works through séances. Painted on sheets of paper laid on the floor, they are among the earliest abstract paintings in Western art, made several years before Kandinsky's first abstractions.