Falling Into Fascination
(Day #10 of Hilma af Klint and The Imaginary Possible)
Hilma af Klint born near Stockholm, Sweden in 1862, at Karlberg castle, a naval academy where her father was an admiral. She was fourth of five children born to Mathilda af Klint (née Sonntag) and Captain Victor af Klint. The male af Klints were well -known in Sweden as ocean map-makers and naval officers who had written technical books about navigation, surveying, and mathematics.
I haven’t been able to find out any details about her mother.
Physically, Hilma was a barely 5”2 inches, with intense blue eyes, like her father.
From a very early age she was a keen observer of the world around her, interested in science, mathematics and botany.
Her family spent every summers on the island of Adelsö in Lake Mälaren, where I imagine Hilma spent a great deal of her childhood outdoors observing, and probably sketching the natural world.
The family was not interested in art but to their credit they recognized her talent
Possessing an independent spirit, Hilma was a vegetarian who normally wore black.
People described her as serious and unsentimental. “Mathematical, scientific, musical — curious” is how Iris Müller-Westermann, director of Moderna Museet Malmö in Malmö, Sweden describes her.
“Life,” Hilma declared, “is a farce if a person does not serve truth.”
Her life -long curiosity and devotion to the truth lead her to become an artist, a researcher who investigated both the physical and nonphysical worlds, a medium who trained herself to communicate with what she called “high beings,” a woman who some called a witch. Hilma was woman ahead of her time.
Everything I learned about Hilma af Klint made me want to know more.
