How did Hilma af Klint complicate the history of early abstract painting?

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Édouard Manet: Olympia — Painting *Olympia*, oil on canvas by Édouard Manet, 1863; in the Musée d'Orsay, Paris.

Hilma af Klint complicates the traditional narrative of abstract art by challenging the long-held belief that Wassily Kandinsky was the first modern artist to create purely abstract works.1

While Kandinsky is traditionally credited with pioneering abstraction around 1910–11, af Klint began her series Paintings for the Temple as early as 1906. Her work complicates art history in several ways:1

Isolation and Intent: Unlike artists who developed abstraction as a formal evolution within the art world, af Klint worked in relative isolation, driven by spiritualism and theosophical teachings.1
External Inspiration: She attributed her unconventional, nonobjective style to guidance from "high masters" contacted during sēances, rather than a conscious pursuit of pure abstraction.1
Delayed Recognition: Because she believed the public was not ready for her vision, she left instructions that her abstract work remain hidden until 20 years after her death, keeping her contribution largely absent from the 20th-century art canon until a major 2018 exhibition at the Guggenheim Museum.1