I visited the Museum of Modern Art on October 9th. It was a very rainy day, but the museum was very crowded. I had never been to a museum of this type before; I have never been really interested in “art”. While at the museum I was amazed to see how intricate the works of art were, even though I didn’t always understand what the work was meant to be or meant to explain I admired the work put into them. After walking around confused trying to decide which piece I would like to analyze, I found Hope II by Gustav Klimt. While reading the excerpt next to this painting I was surprised to learn that paintings of pregnant women were considered to be rare. This painting caught my eye immediately and I knew I was going to write about it.
The Austrian painter Gustav Klimt painted Hope II in 1907-08. It is painted from oil, gold, and platinum on canvas. I chose this painting to analyze because it depicted a sad pregnant woman; this made me question why she was sad. As I got a closer look I saw that there seemed to be a skeleton head coming out of her dress. The woman’s breasts are also bare and visible, which I thought was strange, because the woman is not alone. There are three women bowing at the woman’s feet.
Klimt came from Vienna and his works coincided with the ideas of Sigmund Freud. Klimt’s painting had the ideas of sex and death, as depicted by the woman’s bade breast and the skeleton of a baby. Klimt’s title Hope II, helped me understand what this painting is about.
Although I am not certain that my analysis of this painting is correct, this is my take on what Klimt was trying to say. The woman in the painting is an expecting mother who is coming to the end of her pregnancy. I believe she is looking down at her stomach, which seems to have a skeleton baby head in it, hoping that everything goes well with her delivery. The women at her feet are in a kneeling position praying for the same thing. At first I thought this paining symbolized a stillborn baby, but with the title Hope II, I think it has more to do with an up and coming birth. Behind the pregnant woman is a yellowish white figure, which to me looks to be angel wings. To me this is symbolic of the fear that she can also die during childbirth, back then many mothers died during childbirth.
After visiting the museum and analyzing a painting I have a greater liking for art. This paining seemed very simple yet very deep, which is what I liked most. Before I went to the museum I thought of art as just abstract objects that only the painter understood. Now I know that there is not only one analysis of a painting, it’s what you get out of it. Like in Hope II, it could be the idea of a stillborn baby like I originally thought or it can be the idea of hope for a good outcome in childbirth. Works of art just like works of literature are up to the audience to interpret.