Hope I 1903

Gustav Klimt made "Hope I" at the beginning of the 20th century with oil on canvas. Imagine Klimt standing before this tall, narrow canvas, building up layers of paint and gold leaf. The woman’s skin, rendered in soft, muted tones, contrasts with the intense patterns surrounding her. It’s an interesting mix, right? A kind of dance between vulnerability and artifice. He’s echoing the old masters, like Titian, but also doing his own fin-de-siècle thing. Look at the way the blue fabric drapes around her belly; it is covered with tiny fish and other marine life, a swirling mass of gold ornamentation suggesting both the fragility and the power of life. The dark figures lurking in the background might represent societal judgment or anxiety. I think he's saying something about the way society looks at women, motherhood, and creation. Klimt was part of a whole wave of artists thinking about those things, each in their own way, and it makes you wonder what we're all gonna leave behind for the next generation of painters to chew on.