Gustiv Klimt (1862 - 1918), continued

Hope I (1903) oil on canvas

Hope I shows a naked girl in profile in last stages of pregnancy .  She's ready to give birth any minute.  She has blue eyes and a straight on stare, as if she doesn't care what you, the viewer, thinks.  Her hair is a brilliant colour of red frizzy hair, she has ruby red nipples, white skin, an almost a deathly white, bushy red pubic hair, and skinny legs.  She not bothered by the skulls that hang around in the background.

The girl, or woman, stands in the fore front with pathos behind her - loopy lines, leering faces, swirling lines. Calling the painting Hope I, maybe Klimt was saying even in the death skull background, the pregnancy brings hope.  Although in 1903, it is shameless, decadent, showing an unwedded teenage mother, and she will probably be punished for having a child out of wedlock,  (showing off her big pregnant body). 

But the young woman doesn't seem to care at all.