Painting and Sculpture
Hilma af Klint (Swedish: [ˈhɪ̂lːma ˈɑːv ˈklɪnːt]; 26 October 1862 – 21 October 1944) was a Swedish artist and mystic whose paintings are considered to be among the first major abstract works in Western art history. A considerable body of her work predates the first purely abstract compositions by Kandinsky, Malevich, and Mondrian. She belonged to a group called "The Five", a circle of women inspired by Theosophy who shared a belief in the importance of trying to contact the "High Masters", often through séances. Her paintings, which sometimes resemble diagrams, were a visual representation of complex spiritual ideas.
Melancholia (Lucas Cranach the Elder, Colmar).
Grahame Sydney.
Text from Wikipedia; plate via Wikimedia Commons. Text CC BY-SA 4.0; plate freely licensed (see Commons). Source record. Images and catalogue data are reproduced from open-access collections.