Hilma af Klint, the Swedish abstract painter and mystic whose paintings are considered among the first major abstract works in Western art history will have a selection of her botanical drawings on display at MOMA this May. She combined detailed renderings of plants with enigmatic abstract diagrams – a sunflower paired with concentric circles, a narcissus crowned by a pinwheel of primary colors, and tree blossoms accompanied by checkerboards of dots and strokes. She sought to reveal, in her words, “what stands behind the flowers,” reflecting her belief that studying nature uncovers truths about the human condition.
Born 26 October 1862 Solna, Sweden, no birth time, she was admitted to the Royal Academy of Fine Arts at twenty and gained recognition for her landscapes, botanical drawings, and portraits. Her conventional painting became the source of her income, but her ‘life’s work’ remained a separate practice. She belonged to a group called “The Five”, a circle of women inspired by Theosophy. Her paintings were a visual representation of complex spiritual ideas and a considerable body of her work predates the first purely abstract compositions by Kandinsky, Malevich and Mondrian.
She had an intense Scorpio Sun and Mercury in a deep-thinking opposition to Pluto in Taurus. The spiritual dimension of her life began to develop in 1880 when her younger sister Hermina died and it was at this time that her interest in abstraction, symbolism and spiritism developed. At that point tr Neptune in Taurus was conjunct her Pluto which has strong associations with the supernatural and paranormal.
She also had an upfront Mars in Aries conjunct Neptune opposition Saturn – disciplined, hard-edged, creative. Her Sagittarius Moon may have been opposition Uranus.
Georgiana Houghton, 20 April 1814, Las Palmas de Gran Canarias, who predates Klint, was another artist and spiritualist medium who produced her work at seances. She developed a completely abstract style, at least 40 years before Kandinsky and Piet Mondrian. She did not depict objects of the natural world but what she described as a spiritual experience. She described her paintings as a system of “sacred symbolism,” in which each formal element carried a unique meaning.
She was an Aries/Taurus Sun, maybe New Moon, square Saturn in Aquarius. Her Pluto conjunct Venus in Pisces was amplified being the focal point of Mars opposition Neptune. Ultra-determined she would arouse resistance to her ideas which would be ahead of their time with such a Pluto.
Pity there are no birth times. Both are likely to have had strong 8th house placings given their interests in the world beyond.
I had not seen these artists before. I was struck by the word klint meaning rock and has association with a coastal escarpment. Houghton comes from words that mean ridge and settlement. Artists from the edge.
The af Klint piece reminded me of what you see on a slide in a high powered microscope.
The Georgiana Houghton piece is very interesting as it took me back to a particular exhibit at the Virginia Science Museum in my childhood that was set up to study the motion a pendulum made.
There you put pens into a arm that was fixed and you pulled it up or dropped it down. It was fixed in place.
To look at the motion, you put a piece of paper on a metal frame that was hung from a single point such that it had the motion of a pendulum. Then you began adjusting the pendulum metal sheet with touches. It replicated the style but you could adjust color too. Pulling up the pen you could replace it with another color. Her pieces look like her method included differing pens widths as well.
“A sunflower paired with concentric circles..” Now read what Sepharial said about
13Pisces (her Asc degree)…..”A circle within a circle, both concentric.” Sepharial
wrote this many, many years ago!!!
I will rectify Georgina Houghton tomorrow.
Here is my rectified chart for Hilma of Klint. Neptune and Makemake on her Asc gives
interest in Mathematics while Pisces and ruler Neptune gave mysticism. Aries
intercepted in her 1st s7hows hiigh cheek bones characteristic of Aries, espccially with
Mars in Aries also there.
Venus strong in Libra gave painting and an interest in botany/flowers.
Adding support to the rectification was her death event….age 81….Solar Arc Uranus
was then conj her Dec; SA Requem & SA Nemesis were conj her 6th cusp; trans
Libitina, funeral, conj IC, as was SA Neptune (Never revealed mystic secrets);
SA Libitina & SA Phoinix, ashes, conj Asc; trans Nodes conj her Asc/Dsc, she was eclipsed; trans SA RIP, rest in peace, opposed natal Hilma
https://postimg.cc/PPszRm4B
Thanks Marjorie. I am fascinated by Klint and adore her work. Thank you, Jane for introducing me to Geogiana Houghton. I note that Klint’s Neptune Return will occur during this year’s exhibitions of her work. As someone born with Mars/Neptune – which doesn’t have all that great a reputation, since in politicians for example it can lean towards the Machiavellian – her large canvases resonate too, since from childhood I always had an interest in the esoteric. Both artists have these planets in aspect. Both informed by mysticism and the Spiritual movement which began in 1848, just as Neptune entered Pisces.
I’m reminded too of a much earlier individual, the remarkable Hildegard Von Bingen, philosopher, visionary, mystic, composer, artist and inventor of her own secret and sacred language. She painted a series of mystical mandalas, representing the cosmos which are in many instances highly abstract, almost reminiscent of the mandalas in Buddhism. Her chart is equally vibrant with Mars in Scorpio squaring onto a focal point Neptune in Leo with Mars opposing a 12th house Jupiter/Uranus conjunction in Taurus. She has Moon/Pluto in Aries opposing Saturn in Libra and a Capricorn NN in the 8th.
I must add that the chart for Hildegard is not accurate, rather it’s from Astrotheme and I don’t know the source for it, but she was born c 1098, when Pluto was in Aries, Neptune in Leo and Uranus in Taurus.
Shame we don’t have an accurate date for Hildegard von Bingen VF. An astonishing woman of creativity, mysticism, and common sense too. I have some recordings of her music.
I begin to think there might be something in the air, or rather the Cosmos! There’s a new exhibition of Ithell Colquhoun’s work at Tate St Ives, and then Tate Britain this year. Another mystical occultist, more or less surrealist, but I think they chucked her out because of her occultism. She designed a tarot deck too. She’s a Libran, with Jupiter in Cancer conjunct Neptune square her Sun, and trine Saturn in Pisces. She felt herself to be spiritually connected to the landscape where she lived – appropriately, by the Cornish coast. This summer sees a Jupiter return to that vast ocean of Jupiter/Neptune in Cancer.
There may be a Gemini Moon conjunct Pluto, but I haven’t got a birth time (in India) for her. Needless to say, her work has been sidelined and ignored for many years, but now she’s getting this big exhibition! Pluto in Aquarius might be positive for women, and Neptune in Aries could be a female mystical warrior figure, amongst many other manifestations. Hope so, anyway.
Thanks Jane, what wonderful and intriguing artists. I’ve long imagined what it was like to live in Hildegard’s order and would find it preferable to being married, subject to the social restrictions of the time and perpetually pregnant. At least you had an education, were taught skills and life was relatively peaceful. Hildegard’s music is absolutely joyful and heartfelt – the voices of angels, indeed.
BML has recently shifted into Scorpio and is currently approaching its square to Pluto, which would be fitting for a revival of female and lgbtq artists.
Thank you for the introduction to their beautiful work. I was unfamiliar with these exceptional artists.
Marjorie, I always learn so much here from you and the extraordinarily broad and interesting community you’ve created. I so appreciate all of you!
Thank you Marjorie. I’m fascinated with both these artists, and the exhibitions of their work I’ve seen remain vivid in my mind after quite a few years. As does Matisse, whose spiritual beliefs were closely linked with his life and work – another Sagittarius Moon individual, but with a Pluto/Jupiter conjunction in Taurus.
Marjorie, I am deeply grateful for this. My daughter made me discover af Klint a few years ago. Her work is truly awesome and speaks profoundly to my mystical nature. I did not know about Houghton, who is also hugely interesting.
I also have a Moon-Pluto conjunction at the focal pont of a yod. I do feel some of my ideas are ahead of their time. Pluto is in the 8th house at 26 Leo, the Moon on the 9th house cusp at 28 Leo.. The current Uranus square is intensifying spiritual, psychic and philosophical experiences I have often had.
I try to relax by reading Le Carré, but they catch up to me even there. I read one of his last novels in the middle of the night this week, Our kind of traitor, published only 15 years ago. In it, he quotes a Polish professor of philosophy who taught at Oxford, Laszek Kolakowsky (I hope I spell it right). He was forced into exile by the Communist regime and inspired the Solidarity movement, which led to the fall of the Berlin wall. He wrote that evil is an autonomous force that does not depend on social conditions as the Marxists said.
Food for thought in our time.