The Ten Largest, 1907

Hilma af Klint

Narrator: The monumental images that make up the suite The Ten Largest were painted in egg tempera on paper mounted on linen. It’s a medium that demands planning and a fast execution since the paint dries so quickly. According to Hilma af Klint’s notes, her fellow The-Five-member Cornelia Cederberg, as well as another friend, Gusten Andersson, helped her in the process. By all accounts, the sheets of paper we lying on the bare floor when the paintings were made, and each image took four days to produce.

The paintings depict the four phases in a human life: Childhood, Youth, Adulthood and Old Age. The relationship between the male and the female principles is central to all four of the ages. In her notebooks, Hilma af Klint often came back to the teachings of the spirit beings, the High Masters, regarding the so-called Dual. A simple explanation of the term Dual is that humans are divided beings that are constantly looking for their other half. This is not to be understood in a romantic way, as a search for “the one”, but rather it’s about complimentary principles and qualities that are necessary for man to become whole.