The Ten Largest, No. 7, Adulthood

Called by a spiritual power to create 'ten paradisaically beautiful paintings', Hilma Af Klint worked with divine urgency to make this series of work, painting each monumental masterpiece in no more than four days. A total of ten paintings make up the series, each measuring nearly three metres in height, and depicting the four stages of life in order to 'give the world a glimpse' of their future. Trained in mathematics and botany, Klint is widely considered to be the first abstract artists in Western Art History, though she worked throughout her life in secret and died with strict instructions for her paintings not to be shown until a decade after her passing. Her botanical training is clear in her depiction of human experience, the natural forms that make up this study of adulthood ground us in a connection to the organic world. The soft vibrancy of the background provides a field on which relationships occur, forms meet and coalesce, adulthood brings with it unity and calm, dynamism from the joining of two lives.