Adulthood, The Ten Largest, No 5-8, Group IV, 1907

Hilma af Klint

Narrator: The four paintings with a purple background represent the different phases of adult life.

The pink flower that is uppermost in the first of these paintings has five petals. In a sketchbook from 1907, the same year that The Ten Largest was produced, the names of the members of The Five are inscribed in the same kind of flower. The five-petalled flower could also symbolise the four elements of earth, fire, air and water, as well as the fifth, the so-called quintessence. The quintessence could be described as a concentration of the most essential parts of existence. Within alchemy, the quintessence is intimately linked to the philosopher’s stone.

Letters in different combinations occur frequently throughout the entire Temple series and the second painting of the Adulthood suite is full of them. In her manuscript Notes on Words and Letters, which is exhibited in the adjacent room, Hilma af Klint wrote down the different meanings of the letters and words. But one and the same letter or letter combination can mean different things depending on the context, so there is no real encryption key that always works. The letters “u” and “w” often denote spirit and matter respectively. Possibly the letters are meant to be sounded like mantras. Sound is movement and in many traditions sound vibrations are used as a kind of portal to altered states of awareness, such as the ohm sound in yoga that is used in meditation.

In the third purple painting, the letters “u”, “w” and “s” recur, as well as the word vestalasket [Vestal ascetic].

In the fourth and final painting the interplay between the blue and the yellow, that is the male and the female principle, is central.