Deconstructing Thought Forms: The Shapes

Bachelor degree project, Konstfack 2021

One in s series of three books deconstructing the content to make the idéas in the book Thought Forms (1905) accesible to todays readers. Thought Forms is written by the theosophists Annie Besant and C. W. Leadbeater which idéas about form and colour inspirer early abstract paintings such as Hilma af Klint and Wassily Kandinsky. 

This book presents the idéas of figures and its meanings acording to Thought Forms. This book presents presents the context. The authors belived that clairvoyant people could see colorful shapes above someone thinking of feeling somethin. They called these figures “Thought Forms”. 

This book showes al the images and text from Thought forms, byt presented in a other way. Starting with all images edithed and prinded on glossy papper, followed by a index of a description of all figures and a chapter with the context, illustrated with more photos from the time that were not part of the original book. 

Read more about the project on Konstfack´s website
Awarded with  Svensk Bokkonst 2021. 






Most photos taken by Alva Nylander