Documentary film “Beyond the Visible: Hilma af Klint” focuses on one exceptional female artist who definitely deserves a lot of attention and appreciation for her pioneering artistic achievement. Although it has been almost 80 years since she died, many of her numerous artworks were fortunately preserved and then re-discovered at last, and these artworks of hers are worthwhile to observe and appreciate as the hidden but important parts of the Western art history during the 19-20th century.

She is a Swedish artist named Hilma af Klint, and the early part of the documentary shows and tells us a bit about the considerable historical value of some of her artworks, which are now regarded as the earlier abstract works than the ones from many prominent abstraction artists such as, yes, Wassily Kandinsky. As a matter of fact, the documentary even argues that a painting of hers might have inspired Kandinsky to some degree when he happened to encounter it via a mutual acquaintance of theirs, though there is not any definite evidence to prove that yet.

Klint was born to an affluent military family in 1862, and that was one of the crucial factors in her growth and maturation as an artist. Like many other young women during that time, she was expected to become a wife and mother from the very beginning, but her father often encouraged her toward more education and knowledge, and that was how she came to study a lot of things including math and science, which turned out to be the main source of inspiration for her besides her subsequent interest in the spiritual world.

During the early years of her artistic career, Klint usually drew the vivid and realistic paintings clearly influenced by naturalism, but she was not satisfied at all as pursuing her growing artistic vision and ambition, and she happened to be at the right time for the inspiration to boost her artistic sensibility. She knew well about all those exciting academic advances made by those famous scientists such as, yes, Albert Einstein and Max Plank, and that made her reach more for something beyond the visible on the surface.

Eventually, Klint came to have her own artistic vision which still looks quite fresh and modern even at present, and the documentary gives us a number of examples showing how she often preceded many other notable artists ranging from Kandinsky to, surprise, Warhol. As a matter of fact, she already had an early idea of what would be defined as Pop Art, and this is quite evident to us when one of her artworks is shown right next to one of the most famous ones created by Warhol.

The reason why Klint was criminally overlooked throughout not only her artistic career but also next several decades after her death was pretty simple: her gender. She was often limited by that no matter how much she tried to keep going further, and she was quickly ignored and then forgotten by art dealers, critics, and curators, nearly all of whom were incidentally, yes, male. In addition, she was not willing to show or sell many of her abstract paintings because she knew from the beginning that she was far ahead of the time to come, though she did have several exhibitions inside and outside Sweden.

Although she had to stop for a while when she had to take care of her ailing mother in the early 1910s, Klint subsequently painted again while getting some economic support from her best friend, who happened to be a member of one very wealthy family. Thanks to her best friend, she could have a little studio where she could freely wield her creative power, but, sadly, this studio was demolished not long after her death.

During the last years of her life, Klint was more occupied with preserving her artworks. Right before she died, she left all of those artworks and daily records of hers to her nephew because she trusted him a lot. Although her nephew did not regard highly of his aunt’s artworks, he kept them all in a storage place anyway, and it is rather amazing that nearly all of them remained pretty intact during next several decades despite the rather poor environment of that storage place.

Anyway, Klint’s artworks gradually drew attention after they belatedly got discovered. Around the 2010s, she became known more around the world especially after several major articles on her artworks were published, and, as shown around the end of the documentary, a big exhibition was held in Stockholm several years ago for making her artworks more accessible to many people out there.

On the whole, “Beyond the Visible: Hilma af Klint” is an engaging guide for anyone not so familiar with Klint’s artworks. It is clear that director Halina Dyrschka is very passionate about the main subject of her documentary, and she did a competent job of presenting Klint’s artistic personality with care and respect. Although the documentary does not show that much on Klint’s life, her intelligence and artistic spirit are evident whenever the documentary focuses on her artworks, and I was certainly glad to see them on the big screen. To be frank with you, I still do not know whether these abstract works of hers are profoundly simple or simply profound, but I can tell you at least that they did interest and fascinate me in one way or another during my viewing, and I will surely not forget her considerable artistic contribution for the rest of my life.