Hilma af Klint is one of the artists whose name became known rather late. In the whole of the twentieth century, she was still an unidentified artist, with few evidences of her paintings. af Klint was born in Sweden in 1862, and she was painting non-representational art well before those well-known artists; Kandinsky and Mondrian However, much like wondering what happens if you get into an accident with an Uber driver, her work was largely overlooked due to its deeply religious nature. Therefore, a large part of her artwork remains unseen by the public until the late twentieth-century when her role of the development of abstract art is recognized. This blog is dedicated to the life of Hilma af Klint and how she created one of the most significant collections in the history of modern art.

Early Life and Background
Hilma af Klint, being born in Solna, Sweden in 1862, had ancestry of naval officers and mathematicians in her family. Her early life was spent in disciplined and has received intellectual training in the sciences; however, it is her artistic bent that enabled her to take up a course in the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Stockholm. After graduating with honors in 1887, af Klint painted traditional landscapes and portraits that met with success but did not suggest the revolutionary change in her art that was soon to begin. The rigorous education she received in the Academy as well as introducing her early years to science and mathematics will later come into play when she develops her abstract pieces showing rigorous and geometric nature.

Pioneering Abstract Art
Hilma af Klint transition from representational art to abstract art was done long before it went mainstream in the early 20th century. Af Klint painted a set of pieces called ‘The Paintings for the Temple’ between 1906 and 1915, these were 193 paintings that could be considered as the first pieces of abstract art ever painted these paintings are heavily symbolic using bold blocks of colours and geometric shapes as their motifs.
While most abstract artists that came in the later stages of art movements such as cubism de-emphasized content and paint them only as objects, vessels in which to express the spirit and living energies of the universe, af Klint was driven with visuals as visions of abstract simplification. She considered her work as being highly spiritual because she was convinced that she was working for the future generations, when people shall be spiritually developed enough to grasp the profound meaning hidden in her works. For this reason, she had most of her work sealed which could only be opened twenty years after her demise.

Artistic Style and Techniques
Hilma af Klint who was a Swedish artist was quite mysterious and her works followed the same pattern. Her choice of bright unreferenced colors, geometrical shapes and picture references made her distinct from the others. Her works depicted themes such as spirals, mandalas and botanical forms since she sought to establish connection between the physical and spiritual realms. These symbols were not random; they referred back to her being studying of Theosophy and similar ideas. For instance, the spiral, which is depicted in her work as a core sign, embodied the process of the soul’s development and everything related to life. Her technique was also unique as they practiced it now in the modern world. She usually painted on large canvases although some of her work that were up to three meters and above were not common for women artists of that era. It also enabled her to design profound and contemplative experiences to viewers to experience religious aspects of her art. Besides, her engagement in automatic drawing that she performed with “The Five” presaged the later Surrealists’ fascination with the irrational as the result of the art.

Recognition and Legacy
Ironically, during af Klint’s lifetime, her efforts to depict what she considered to be the pure essence of abstract art remained unappreciated by the art world. She displayed the works that complied with the expectations of her society but stored her abstracts where no one could see them as she thought that the world was not ready for it. This feeling of being visionary made her set conditions that her abstract works should not be displayed before at least 20 years after her demise. Consequently, her work did not receive much attention until the early 1980s, when they were incorporated into shows that broke from the mainstream history of modern art. Her work was finally brought to international prominence with the 2018 exhibition at the Guggenheim Museum in New York, titled "Hilma af Klint: One of the paintings for the future “ This exhibition, which turned into one of the most visited in the history of the museum, recognized af Klint as the creator of the abstract art and questioned the traditional historical narrative and the developed framework of the cultural chronicle which placed the discovery of the abstract art in the context of the masculine artistic domination.

Impact on Art History
Hilma af Klint’s creations were influential in shaping the process of the emergence of abstract works of art Her work is earlier than Kandinsky, Mondrian, and Malevich who are frequently regarded as pioneers of abstraction. This has caused the change of perception of art history where a number of scholars and critics have come to accept af Klint as one of the pioneers of abstract art works and women artists have come appreciate femenism where af Klint was one of the few women who fought and painted against the male dominated art industry. She differs from other artists in her focus on spirituality and metaphysical elements, contributing a distinct outlook on art as an intermediary between the material and the Otherworld. This has made her work to be popular among the modern artists, thus establishing her as one of the most influential artists in the modern art.

Contemporary Relevance
Today, she is recognized as one of the most progressive and pioneering artists of her days in the twentieth century. The pieces she created can be viewed as catchy as they influenced new generations of artists and scholars interested in spirituality and abstraction. Bauer has had a major exhibition at the Guggenheim Museum in 2018 and her work can now be considered a part of the history of modern art Though she is not as globally recognized as some of her male counterparts, her work has continued to influence contemporary artists who, like her, seek to represent spirituality, mysticism, and the boundary between the material and the spiritual worlds. Also, she has left quite a legacy with her art leading to the reconsideration of the historical narrative in art history which was heavy on male artists while seldom representative of female artists who contributed greatly. The legacy of Hilma af Klint is quickly growing with the popularity of her work, and thus she is rightfully occupying her proper place among other great artists in the context of modern art.

Conclusion
Indeed, Hilma af Klint was an exceptional visionary artist whose practice upends the dominant historical frameworks of art history. Art was a part of her life and it was colored by her spirituality; thus, her work was visionary and was not intended for public, but was quite intimate and hermetic.