Svanen 1914

Hilma af Klint made 'Svanen' with oil paint in a square format sometime before 1944, and there are so many ways into this painting! I imagine Klint in her studio, turning the canvas, trying out different orientations as she worked. See how the dark and light swans coil around each other? The paint isn't too thick but applied in layers that create a gentle texture, especially in the wings. The quadrants of muted color—rose, grey, white, and brown—feel like different emotional states or stages in a process. There's a push and pull, a kind of mirroring that makes me think about duality, or even conflict. It reminds me of other painters, like Dove or Hartley, who were also wrestling with how to express inner visions through abstraction. We artists, we're always having this silent conversation across time, borrowing and riffing off each other's ideas. It’s like a game of telephone, but with paint! What do you see in this painting? What does it make you feel?