Old Age, The Ten Largest, No 9-10, Group IV, 1917

Hilma af Klint

Narrator: The organic and playful shapes in the earlier images have been replaced by a considerably stricter composition, with symmetrical and geometric forms, in Old Age.

In the first of these two paintings, the background is pink, the colour that Hilma af Klint associated with Eros. There are two spirals at the bottom of the image with overlapping yellow and blue circles. Above the spirals, two seed shapes, probably wheat kernels, have been placed. Then another set of intersecting circles. The almond shape that emerges in the middle is usually called a vesica piscis. It is a primordial symbol of a progression towards unity and completion.

Right at the top there are two diagram-like flower shapes that almost look as if they have been constructed using a compass. The outer circles are painted yellow and blue respectively. In notes produced several years later, Hilma af Klint commented that this painting is about a Divinity that has incorporated both the male and the female principle.

In the very last painting of The Ten Largest, many of the symbols from previous paintings recur, though in a more restrained form. The empty light surfaces create a harmonious calm. In the small egg or droplet in the lower half of the picture, the grid and the spirals are reflected in miniature. The horizontal eight symbolises infinity.