Gustav Klimt - Hope II

Hope, II (Die Hoffnung II), painted in 1907-1908 in oil, gold and platinum on canvas by Austrian Symbolist Gustav Klimt. A pregnant woman bows her head over her swelling body while a small skull appears near her abdomen, placing expectation and mortality in unsettling proximity. Three women gather at her feet in poses that can suggest prayer, grief or contemplation. Klimt combines this psychologically charged subject with gold, pattern and a flattened decorative surface characteristic of his Golden Period. He originally called the work Vision; the title Hope, II developed through its relationship to his earlier painting of a pregnant woman, Hope I.