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The Debate Over Who Invented Abstraction, from Kandinsky to Hilma Af Klint
When the story of art was overturned by a new discovery
Christopher P Jones is the author of How to Read Paintings, an introduction to some of the most fascinating artworks in art history.
For decades, it was thought that the first artist to take the momentous step of painting entirely abstract art was Wassily Kandinsky in 1911.
What the historians didn’t consider was that there was someone else entirely removed from mainstream artistic circles at the time who had beaten Kandinsky to it by half a decade.
Ever since the discovery of the paintings of Hilma af Klint, a Swedish artist who created an entire body of abstract works dating from as early as 1906, trust in the original story has been steadily eroding.
Shared Visions
What’s fascinating about the arrival of abstraction for both Af Klint and Kandinsky is its relationship to their philosophical outlook.
For Kandinsky, his artistic drive was premised on the perception of man and nature as deriving from the same cosmic realm — a romantic spiritual whole beyond the tangible world — leading him to think of abstract painting as an access point into that mystical structure.
Af Klint also found inspiration in mysticism and spiritual practices. Through gatherings with female artist friends — in a group called “The Five” — she took part in meditation and séances. She came to believe she could commune with beings beyond the physical world, and took to transcribing their messages through automatic writing and drawing.
As Kandinsky and Af Klint’s common interests attest, such spiritual explorations were widespread across Europe, particularly in artistic and literary circles. With new scientific developments revealing forces invisible to the naked eye — including X-rays, infrared light and electromagnetic fields — free-thinking artists were inextricably drawn to the transcendental possibilities of abstraction.
