Hilma Af Klint & Piet Mondriaan exhibition: integrity, myth and money

From October 7 Hilma Af Klint will gloriously return to the Kunstmuseum in The Hague. In 1986, now 37 years ago, Af Klint rose to international fame as the discovery of the century in the American travelling exhibition The Spiritual in Art: Abstract Painting 1895-1985, of which The Hague was the last venue. In 2018, Af Klint’s international acclaim as the pioneer of Swedish abstract art was sealed at the Guggenheim Museum. Af Klint’s work has acquired cultish dimensions. People swoon before her work. Researchers and critics regard themselves as channeled by the artist. 

So, nothing wrong with this new exhibition, is there? False: everything is wrong about this exhibition. Literally everything. 

The exhibition of Anna Cassel and Hilma af Klint. Stockholm 1913

In 2013 and 2017 I wrote several blogs on the art of Hilma af Klint, in which I pointed out that research had only started, and that art production can never be separated from the impulses an artist gets from his/her social surroundings: people, ideas, political circumstances, literature, work of other artists, just to name a few sources. Since that time more literature on Hilma af Klint has been published, but alas: much of my objections to the way she is pictured as the ‘lone Swedish genius of abstraction’ still stand.

It all comes down to basic research. Of primary sources. Of contemporary sources. Of contemporary literature, especially when it comes to interpretation of iconography of 'occult' art. As in all research facts need to lead the way. Facts need to be amassed from many different sources. Time-consuming, yes. Illuminating, yes. Facts can end up painting a totally different picture than what has been reported in history. It is very important, for instance, to check the information in ‘autobiographical’ reports against information from other sources, before this information solidifies into a fixed image. Do the facts correspond? If not, why not? For which reasons were facts distorted, left out, inflated?

Hilma af Klint is said to have first exhibited her ‘occult’ art in 1928 in London, at the occasion of an Anthroposophical conference. She and her art were labeled as ‘Rosicrucian’. Understandably: from 1907 the president of the Anthroposophical Society, Rudolf Steiner, had coined his Theosophy as ‘modern Rosicrucianism’. Hilma had become a true fan of Steiner. So that fits, doesn’t it? In 1932 she wrote that she was unhappy about her reception, that people didn’t understand her art and thought it best to have her work behinds lids for the next twenty years.

The 1928 exhibition however was not her first. Fifteen years earlier Hilma and her life-long friend and financial, emotional and artistic pillar-behind-the-scenes Anna Cassel were part of the exhibition organized by the European Confederation of the Theosophical Society, which was held in Stockholm in 1913. When I wrote down these facts in 1990 while researching the 1904 Theosophical exhibition which was held in Amsterdam to prepare my dissertation, I could never have envisaged that my notes would become important. But well, that is what researchers do: hoarding information for you-never-know-when.

The analysis of the Theosophical Stockholm exhibition has led to surprising discoveries. The exhibition itself had a completely different character than the previous exhibitions of the European Confederation in other European cities. The analysis of the group of artists also provides essential corrections on the work of Hilma af Klint, but not only of hers. Of Anna Cassel as well. Of the groups in which they operated. All women named in the séance notebooks of the group De Fem and other groups, of which both artists were a member, have been identified and have been given a face. All of these women are immensely meaningful for the socioeconomic, spiritual and artistic influences they had on the artists.

The 1913 exhibition functions as a starting point for a more elaborate discussion of the type of exhibited works and the consequences for the interpretation of themes; the ideological backgrounds of the work and shifts in orientation; the networks in which the artists operated and which have influenced them; and the reception history of Hilma af Klint, which has incorrectly determined and influenced the interpretation of the work and of the group.

The book can be ordered here.

New books at Bax Book Store

How influences of western esotericism in art are influenced by family networks

Art is not only the product of artistic inspiration, it is also determined by the social context of an artist. The avant-garde was ideologically determined by Western Esotericism, especially spiritualism, modern theosophy and anthroposophy. Genealogical methods uncover networks of artists, which not only run ‘vertically’ in generations, but also in ‘horizontal’ lines between families.
Text in Dutch.

Mondrian's Passions

No artist has changed the face of modern art, design and architecture more fundamentally than the Dutch painter Piet Mondrian. During his career Mondrian slowly but surely evolved from a traditional 19th century realist painter to the prime pioneer of pure abstraction.
Post-war art historians and critics have always depicted Mondrian as an odd hermit, socially shy and introverted, with a frame of thinking as rectilinear as his art and his Calvinist upbringing.
But how true to his life is this image really?
This book is about Mondrian’s true passions: how painting, the struggle with outward appearance and painterly substance, becomes the inner expression of a view on life; how writing about painting evaluates ideas and development; and the cultivation an extensive social network to reach out to the world.
Mondrian’s message can be condensed into the magical amount of seven words: Art is passion, and passion is life.
This book contains a selection of seminal essays on Mondrian, published in international exhibition catalogues and books between 1994 and 2014, in various languages.

The painting methods of Piet Mondrian, Theo van Doesburg and Bart van der Leck

De Stijl movement never was a coherent group. Analysis of the painting methods of Piet Mondrian, Theo van Doesburg and Bart van de Leck reveal why.

  

How genealogy explains Theo van Doesburg's alias

The real name of the artist Theo van Doesburg, most active propagator of the De Stijl movement, was Christian Emil Marie Küpper. How and why did this Emil Küpper decide on his alias? Genealogy has all the answers.

 

Art & Western Esotericism: from rejected knowledge to blockbuster

From 1996 onwards, Dutch art historians Marty Bax, Andréa Kroon and Audrey Wagtberg Hansen have realized various projects aimed at drawing attention to the relationship between ‘art & western esotericism’. Because our goals have largely been realized, we feel the time has come to focus on other lacunas in our knowledge of art history. This column therefore marks the end of our joint ‘lobby’ for this fascinating subject. 

Art and religion are closely related. Like the main world religions, lesser known religious currents have also provided artists with inspiration. Freemasonry, spiritualism, theosophy and anthroposophy for instance, were relevant to the development of modern art. Within the academic Study of Religions, these organisations are seen as part of western esotericism: an umbrella term for a group of related currents, which date back to the gnosis of Antiquity, the hermetic philosophy of the Renaissance and the ‘occult’ sciences (alchemy, magic, astrology).