Hope, II

A pregnant woman bows her head and closes her eyes as if praying for the safety of her child. Peeping out from behind her stomach is a death’s head, a looming sign of the danger she faces. At her feet, three women with lowered heads raise their hands, presumably also in prayer - although their solemnity might also imply mourning as if they foresaw the child’s fate. Why, then, the painting’s title? Klimt himself called this work Vision, although he had titled an earlier related painting of a pregnant woman Hope. By association with the earlier work, this one has become known as Hope, II.

Klimt was among the many European artists of his time who were inspired by cultural traditions from outside their own milieu. He lived in Vienna, a crossroads of East and West, and he drew on sources such as Byzantine art, Mycenaean metalwork, Persian rugs and miniatures, the mosaics of the Ravenna churches, and Japanese screens. In this painting, the woman’s gold-patterned robe - drawn flat as clothing is in Russian icons, although her flesh is rounded and dimensional - has an extraordinary decorative beauty. Here birth, death, and the sensuality of the living exist side by side, suspended in equilibrium.