Nature and Abstraction - Piet Mondrian and Hilma af Klint Meet at the Tate Modern

During their lifetimes, Hilma af Klint and Piet Mondrian never met but something in their paintings seems to suggest the urgency of a dialogue. This is the thesis of the Tate Modern which, this Spring, will present the works of these artists together for the first time. For those who don’t know her, Hilma af Klint was a Swedish painter of the same generation as Mondrian. Both began as landscape painters, developing an abstract language - revolutionary for the times - starting from nature itself. Both cultivated interests in spirituality, science and philosophy in unconventional forms, pressed by a desire to understand the profound forces governing life. Looking at the paintings of the Swedish artist, it is difficult to grasp that af Klint was a medium - she firmly believed that her painting was guided by superior entities and even created a series of mystic canvases which she prohibited from being displayed until twenty years after her death. At the Tate, we have an opportunity to admire various pieces. The London exhibition is an occasion to discover two visionary artists in a new light - the celebrated grids of Mondrian can be seen alongside the lesser-known paintings of flowers that the Dutch painter created throughout his life, along with the enigmatic works of af Klint, where the forms of reality transform into a multi-coloured journey towards the abstract.