Group IX/SUW, The Swan, No. 1

A space divided into stark black and white. Within it, a white swan and a black swan meet beak to beak.

At first glance, it appears to be a beautiful, mirror-like symmetry. However, it is actually a quiet yet intense intersection of energy, where 'opposition' and 'integration' collide.

From 1914 to 1915, when this painting was created, the world was engulfed in the chaos and slaughter of World War I.

Facing a real world torn apart outside her window, the artist Hilma af Klint secluded herself in her studio and confronted a grand theme: reuniting a divided world.

The white and black swans symbolize all the 'dualities' (opposing elements) of this world: light and shadow, life and death, matter and spirit, and masculinity and femininity.
Upon closer inspection, one can see that the white swan's feet and beak are tinged with blue, representing 'femininity,' while the black swan's are tinged with yellow, representing 'masculinity,' indicating that each contains opposing qualities within itself.

She entrusted these two birds with the miracle, found in alchemy and mysticism, where 'opposing elements unite to create a new height (gold).'

What she depicted on canvas during a time of desperate warfare may have been a prayer for 'ultimate cosmic harmony,' where opposing forces, despite harming each other, eventually dissolve into geometric abstraction and sublimate into a single, pure light.