The Guggenheim Museum: Paintings for the Future

  The Ten Largest (1907) Hilma af Klint

Even though the exhibit “Paintings for the Future” featuring Swedish artist Hilma af Klint’s work at the Guggenheim Museum ended this past winter, “The Ten Largest” series (featured above) has stuck with me. The ten pieces are labeled and thus ordered as a human life cycle beginning with childhood, going to youth, adulthood, and eventually old age. I believe examining the passing stages of one’s life is a universal concept, one to which people of all walks of life can relate. By engaging with this grandiose topic, af Klint’s “The Ten Largest” already has a heightened sense of importance in this exhibit. However, in addition to taking on such an ambitious topic, I think there is another layer to af Klint’s work as it transcends mediums as well. The design can be connected with the short story “Masque of the Red Death” by American writer Edgar Allen Poe. To my mind, a universal concept repeated with the same kind of imagery in both fine arts and literature warrants some attention.

No. 7, Adulthood (1907) Hilma af Klint

In terms of this mentioned imagery, the different frames of color are the driving force in the connection between af Klint and Poe’s work. “The Largest Ten” is a series painting with a dominant color in each frame: navy, light blue, orange, violet, pink, and ivory. Likewise, Poe’s story details the castle of a wealthy Prince Prospero as having seven distinctly colored rooms: blue, purple, green, orange, white, violet, black. If one were to walk in order, either through a room in Poe’s story or past each painting in af Klint’s work, it would be symbolic of a life path. This conclusion is drawn for the paintings by af Klint’s choice of title which literally breaks down stages of life into individual frames. It is a little more complicated and nuanced in Poe’s work as the rooms are more symbolic than directly labeled. In “Masque of the Red Death,” Prince Prospero begins as a lively figure going about his life and is eventually confronted with death at the end. This transition is captured as an allegorical figure for death, dressed as a masked intruder, chases him through all the rooms, marking the passage of life. 

Since the colors between the two works are different, I will not jump to any conclusions about how ‘childhood is yellow’ or ‘adulthood is green.’ I would rather speculate that stages of life can be any shade depending on the individual. Colors are going to change as a room might switch from blue to green, just as people change over time. However, there are some constants despite change; the room might be green now but there are blue tones showing elements of the past. 

Overall, af Klint gave some definition to the broadness of life’s changes but left some room for individuality and interpretation with her work. It is easy to say that life is something that is too large to capture correctly whether it be via art or literature. However, I think af Klint struck some truth with “The Ten Largest.”