Mahatmas n.º2

Context: in 1920 she begins the series devoted to the great spiritual masters, among them Mahatma — great soul in Sanskrit — a figure Hilma had long been trying to reach.

Interpretation: after years given over to a dense chromatic range of blues, yellows and greens, she finally lets it all go. And here is the result: a single circle split into two halves, one light and one dark, because colour is unnecessary when the message is this simple.

Technique: we replace white, the highest tone, with a gold mirror in which light behaves as colour, changing with the angle, the hour, the eye that looks. In this way we reproduce in another material what this visionary was after in her painting: the same duality, the same contrast, but with real light instead of pigment.

Source: Mahatmas, Series II, 1920.