The Swan, No.7 (1915 CE)

The Swan, No. 7 is one of Hilma af Klint’s most striking explorations of spiritual unity and transformation. The painting immediately draws the viewer’s eye toward its center, where four elongated, abstract swan forms extend inward from each corner of the canvas, their beaks meeting at a single radiant point. The composition combines organic motion with geometric rigor: sweeping curves, intersecting diagonals, and a precise circular form create a visual tension between movement and balance. The work appears at once serene and electrifying, offering a first glimpse into the symbolic universe that af Klint sought to reveal.

Hilma af Klint painted The Swan, No. 7 in early 1915 in her studio on Brahestreet in Stockholm. She was then fifty-two years old and working amid the uncertainties of the First World War. Despite the turbulent historical moment, her artistic practice was exceptionally inward-turned, guided by spiritual visions and recorded instructions that she believed originated from higher, non-physical sources. In the weeks leading up to this painting, she wrote that she had been tasked with depicting “the great union,” a moment when opposing forces merge into a single higher reality. The painting reflects this phase of her work: the years in which she had recently completed the most intense period of The Paintings for the Temple, and was now reaching toward a deeper symbolic synthesis.

The creation of this painting generated several memorable episodes. When Rudolf Steiner visited af Klint’s studio in February 1915, he paused for an unusually long time before this very canvas. She noted in her diary that he remained silent for minutes, absorbed in the image, before murmuring that the work expressed more completely than anything he had seen the moment of spiritual union described in anthroposophy. Af Klint recorded that his reaction moved her to tears without her fully understanding why.

At the heart of The Swan, No. 7 lies the theme of unity emerging from apparent multiplicity. Unlike the simpler duality of black and white swans in some of the other works, this painting presents four swan-like forms, each entering from a different direction and rendered in distinct color tones—white, pink, brown, and yellow-gold. They curve inward in a spiraling motion, their beaks almost touching at a tiny glowing center. This meeting point, according to af Klint’s own writings, marks the dissolution of opposition and the beginning of a new spiritual evolution. The swans are not separate creatures but emanations of a single movement toward harmony. The intersecting diagonal lines and the enclosing circle reinforce the idea of convergence, order, and the cyclical nature of spiritual rebirth. In this sense, the painting encapsulates af Klint’s belief that the visible world is only a surface, beneath which forces of transformation operate in rhythmic, geometric patterns.

The work is painted in oil on canvas and measures 150 × 149 centimeters (59.1 × 58.7 inches). Its dark background sets off the luminous arcs and delicate curves of the swans, while the diagonal lines—rendered in white, yellow, red, and blue—divide the canvas like a compass, giving the composition an almost cosmological dimension. A small multicolored heart encloses the central meeting point, emphasizing the painting’s inward pull. The overall technique reflects af Klint’s combination of intuitive image-making with deliberate geometric structure. She did not use improvisation alone; her diaries make clear that every element of the painting had symbolic significance and was carefully considered.

The Swan, No. 7 remained in Hilma af Klint’s possession until her death in 1944. She kept it rolled and carefully preserved. Today, the work belongs to the Hilma af Klint Foundation and is deposited at the Moderna Museet in Stockholm.