The Ten Largest, No. 1, Childhood (1907 CE)

The Ten Largest, No. 1, Childhood is a monumental abstract painting by Hilma af Klint, created in 1907. Against a deep blue ground associated with the feminine and the spiritual, white lily-like flowers float near the top as signs of purity and growth. To the right, pink rose-like forms unfold with intricate inner patterning, suggesting the first stirrings of earthly duality and desire. At the center, a large yellow circle holds twin white almond-shaped forms, a vesica piscis, surrounded by spirals and golden rays that evoke unity, conception, and the earliest awakening of consciousness. Below, orange script spells out “oo” and “Vestalasket,” linking ideas of vibrational harmony, vestal purity, and ascetic discipline. The whole painting radiates a rhythmic, organic energy, presenting childhood not as simple infancy but as a state of spiritual innocence and cosmic beginning.

A Spiritual Commission in Stockholm

Hilma af Klint painted The Ten Largest, No. 1, Childhood in her studio on Hamngatan in Stockholm during an intense forty-day period of work in October and November 1907. The painting arose from a spiritual commission she had received in September that year during a séance with The Five, the women’s group she had co-founded in 1896. A higher master named Amaliel instructed her to create ten paradise-like paintings that would reveal the stages of life. She began with this work, understanding childhood not as literal early age but as the soul’s original nearness to the divine. Working without sketches and in a trance-like condition, she spread large sheets of paper across the floor and painted directly, guided by what she described as a force of immediate channeled energy. The painting was intended for a spiral-shaped temple by the sea, a vision that was never built.

Painting on the Floor

Af Klint created the work on the floor of her fifty-square-meter studio, moving around the paper in a flowing, almost dance-like manner as spiritual guidance directed her hand. The large sheets of lightweight paper made it possible to roll the finished works for storage. In her notebooks, she recorded the commission in Amaliel’s words: ten paradise-like beautiful paintings that would give the world a glimpse of the stages of life. When Rudolf Steiner visited her studio in 1908 and saw the early temple works, including this one, he gave little encouragement and is reported to have said that they were not of this world. The painting remained largely unknown until its first public showing in 1986. It later appeared in major exhibitions, including the Guggenheim’s Paintings for the Future in 2018–2019 and Moderna Museet’s The Ten Largest in 2022–2023, where hand-colored photographs of the series were also shown.

Childhood as Cosmic Awakening

The Ten Largest, No. 1, Childhood is a pioneering work of abstraction, made in 1907 before figures such as Kandinsky, Mondrian, and Malevich are usually placed at the beginning of non-objective art. It expresses spiritual development through a network of symbolic forms and colors: blue for the feminine principle and spiritual depth, yellow for the masculine and enlightenment, white for purity, pink for earthly duality, and orange for inscribed messages. The central vesica piscis suggests unity and a threshold between the material and spiritual worlds. Lilies speak of purity, roses of passion, and spirals of perpetual movement and growth, resonating also with early scientific ideas of development. The painting presents childhood as intuitive oneness with the cosmos. Af Klint herself understood it as an abstract poem rather than a literal image, and she warned against overly fixed interpretations of her symbols. Its pulsating organic forms bring together Theosophy, esoteric tradition, and the language of early modern science, making it a foundational work of spiritual modernism.

Tempera, Paper, and Monumental Scale

The painting is executed in tempera on paper mounted on canvas, with touches of gouache and watercolor. Af Klint applied the paint directly onto large sheets laid across the studio floor, without preparatory studies. The work measures 322 × 239 cm, or 126.8 × 94.1 inches, giving it an enveloping, almost architectural presence. The composition is asymmetrical yet carefully balanced, with floating organic forms gathered into rhythmic clusters. Its palette includes deep ultramarine blue, bright cadmium yellow, pure white, soft rose pink, and vivid orange script. The lightweight paper support made it possible to roll the work for storage and helped make such large paintings physically manageable.

From Studio to Foundation

Hilma af Klint painted the work in 1907 in her Hamngatan studio in Stockholm. After her death in 1944, it passed, in accordance with her wishes, into the care of what became the Hilma af Klint Foundation. For many years it remained in private storage and was shown only to a very limited circle.