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Our opening exhibition shows the places which mattered to her: Adelsö-Munsö, the Temple, and the altar. We are also showing a long interview with Ulla af Klint, who was married to Hilma’s nephew Erik, who inherited her works.

The center is not the ”Temple”, its aim is not to exhibit her big works, but to illustrate all the sides of her life: who she was, what influenced her, her world. It’s also to welcome contemporary artists, thinkers, writers, to discover her world, and the lands which were so important to her.

Hilma af Klint spent a lot of time on Adelsö and it was a place very dear and important for her. Later in life, she had her studio built on the neighbouring island Munsö. Here she kept all her esoteric (”abstract”) art.

11/11
We might never know more details than this.
We do know now, after reading her notes, that she considered herself as a Parsifal. She was carrying the Holy Sword, the message and healer to humanity. The Sword which for both af Klint and Wagner symbolised the link between spirit and body.

10/11
Few pieces of music have been so written about as Richard Wagner’s Parsifal, so even in Sweden. Between 1882 and 1916 no less than 3500 articles had been published in the Swedish press about the opera. So we can assume Hilma af Klint, who was also interested in music, had read about it. >>

9/11
And nearly 35 years after Richard Wagner’s death.
The original premiere of Parsifal took place at the second Bayreuth festival in the summer of 1882. Hilma af Klint was then 20 years old and about to enter the Royal Academy of Arts. >>

8/11
Hilma af Klint was most likely working from Stockholm as the studio at Munsö wasn’t ready before 1918. The premiere of Richard Wagner’s Parsifal took place at the Stockholm Opera on April 21 1917, ie half a year AFTER Hilma af Klint completed her series of 144 paintings. >>

7/11
He called Anthroposophy “the science about the Graal”. But that would be in the 1920’s, and as we have noted by now, Hilma af Klint painted her series in November 1916.
What is, if there is, the connection between her paintings and Richard Wagner’s opera? >>

6/11
He carries the Sword with him but cannot use it to fight (and defend himself); it has to be brought back unsoiled to the castle to heal the king. Wagner’s sword is Sacred, it is the Sword of the Graal.
Rudolf Steiner, founder of Anthroposophy, would write at lengths about Wagner’s Parsifal. >>

5/11
The Sword of the Graal. The same sword which had pierced the side of Jesus hanging on the Cross.
The choice of spelling also bears meaning. If Perceval means “Through the Valley” (“per ce val”), Parsifal holds its meaning from Parsi = fool and Fal=pure, “The pure fool”. >>

4/11
Wagner rewrote the story, combining characters and slightly changing the key of the saga. In von Eschenbachs version, the king would be healed if Parsifal asked the right Question (“What is the Graal?”), in Wagner’s version he could only be healed by the Sword which inflicted the wound, >>

3/11
The Ring of the Nibelung which he wrote in his late thirties, and Parsifal, which was his last main opera. We worked on it for 30 years.
He encountered the medieval legend by Wolfram von Eschenbach in 1945. It is complicated to summarise the myth of Parsifal / Perceval / Parzival because >>

2/11
It is interesting to note that Wagner and af Klint spelled the name in the same way, not with a C nor a Z but an S, not with an E but an A, not with a V but an F - Parsifal.
We might have forgotten it today, but Richard Wagner revolutionalised the art of music. among his two main oeuvres are >>

2/2
— When the physical body has thus undergone the purifying fire, it has come to a natural submission to the laws of life. Now it is also freed from original sin. It feels within itself a great increase of health, soundness, joy of life, and jubilation."

2/2
They would rather go out into ignorance than continue to try to penetrate life prematurely."

3/3
because the life of thought is difficult to overcome. In the following image, feeling is predominant; devotion has succeeded in conquering thought."

2/3
dissecting life. In this image, it is shown that the two forces which the physical body must take in—thought and feeling—become united, make peace. Thought is still predominant, that is, thought has pure intentions but still wants to take the dominant tone, >>