Study n.º 12

Context: here is one of the few sheets in the Nature Studies that the artist devotes entirely to a single species: the horse chestnut, its leaves fanning open from a single point like the fingers of a hand.

Interpretation: we recreate that gesture in which several leaflets unfold each in their own way without ever breaking from their shared origin. Below, on the original sheet, Hilma sketches a three-coloured triangle above a square quartered like a pinwheel, a symbolic system we reduce here to its essentials: a golden circle.

Technique: we work the leaflets as independent parts with a volume of their own, so the earring breathes the way the leaf itself sways in the air. Guided by one fascinating idea: how something can open in several directions without forgetting where it comes from.

Source: Nature Studies, 1919–1920.