About this work
*Tree of Knowledge, No. 5* (*Kunskapens träd, nr 5*) is a 1915 watercolor, gouache, graphite, and metallic paint on paper, measuring 18 1/16 × 11 5/8 inches.
A central stylized tree is vertically split into two halves — a composition representing duality and the interconnectedness of opposing forces — with the symmetry and balance of circles and geometric shapes contributing a sense of both harmony and complexity.
In No. 5 specifically, the canopy at the top is half dark gray on the left and half white on the right, while white stripes stream away from a small black oval at the tip.
Strange pyramid formations glitter with gold and silver accents, riffing on Art Nouveau motifs, religious themes, and the organic shapes of trees and birds.
Blue and yellow carry af Klint's own symbolic charge throughout — femininity and masculinity respectively — two harmonizing aspects she believed each human being possesses. The result reads less like a picture of a tree and more like a diagram of a soul: precise, luminous, and alive with hidden correspondence.
*Tree of Knowledge* was created between 1913 and 1915, marking af Klint's return to her monumental *Paintings for the Temple* project after a four-year hiatus.
The series is a subset of that broader collection, which af Klint produced from 1906 to 1915.
Even as the outbreak of World War I brought apocalyptic anxieties and dread, af Klint's focus here turns instead to rooting and grounding — a shelter from the storm.
Af Klint made two sets of these drawings, presenting one as a gift to Rudolf Steiner for the Goetheanum, the headquarters he had designed for the Anthroposophical Society in Dornach, Switzerland.
As it turns out, af Klint completed two copies of the watercolors; the set gifted to Steiner was handed down to Swiss writer Albert Steffen after Steiner's death in 1925, eventually becoming part of the Steffen Foundation's collections, where it was only recently rediscovered.
The *Tree of Knowledge* sequence is organized around something both recognizable and historically charged — the imagery complex in its embrace of abstraction and figuration, stemming from af Klint's strong interest in metaphysics, with a title immediately understood as a Biblical reference.
This is a work that rewards a quiet room and a considered eye.
