Klimt · 1907 -1908 · sacred motherhood
Hope II motherhood, prayer and Byzantine motives
Pregnant woman lowers head, wrapped in coat of gold, squares, eyes and colors. Beneath her, three women appear to be praying or crying. With Hope II, Klimt transforms pregnancy into a modern icon: splendid, disturbing and almost liturgical.
The short answer
Pregnancy changed to gold icon
Hope II is a work by Gustav Klimt created in 1907 -1908. MoMA describes it as a square-format oil, gold and platinum painting on canvas, now kept in New York.
The painting depicts a pregnant woman bowing her head. Her body almost disappears under a coat dress saturated with patterns: rectangles, eyes, circles, golden surfaces, deep blues and reds. Beneath her, three women form a silent group, between prayer, meditation and mourning.
The subject is close to Hope I, painted in 1903, but the climate is changing. In Hope I, the pregnant woman is naked, frontal, almost exposed to the viewer. In Hope II, Klimt wraps motherhood in a precious surface. Death has not disappeared: it is integrated into the ornament, like a threat hidden at the very heart of beauty.
I · Analysis
The square, gold and silence
Unlike the vertical format of Hope I, Hope II adopt a stable square. The composition seems calmer, but this peace is tense: prayer and mourning rise from the bottom of the painting.
A closed space
The square format gives the image an iconic character. Nothing overflows: the body, patterns and figures are held in the same surface.
An inner gesture
The woman no longer stares at the viewer. She collects herself, as if pregnancy became intimate prayer rather than frontal confrontation.
A body that has become a setting
The dress does not only dress: it transforms the body into architecture of patterns, into a reliquary of color.
The hidden death
The skull placed near the stomach prevents naive reading. Hope is real, but it is never separated from fragility.
II · Maternity and prayer
Three women at the foot of the stomach
The lower group is essential. These three figures are not simple spectators: they give the painting a rite dimension. They can be read as women in prayer, mourners, figures of protection or mourning.
This ambiguity is typical of Klimt. The painting does not say whether they accompany a birth, anticipate a loss or contemplate a mystery. They form a silent choir under the pregnant body, as in a religious image transposed into Viennese modernity.
Motherhood is therefore not only biological. It becomes a spiritual threshold: a zone where desire, fear, beauty, death and transmission intersect.
III · Byzantine motifs
Why talk about Byzantium and Ravenna?
Klimt visited Ravenna in 1903 and discovered Byzantine mosaics there, notably in San Vitale. Sources on Klimt underline the impact of this encounter: gold, frontality, mosaic surface, hieratic figures. Hope II does not copy Ravenna, but it transforms the painting into a precious, almost mosaic surface.
A painted mosaic
The dress accumulates rectangles, eyes, flat areas of gold and colored fragments like the skin of tesserae.
Theodora and the Golden Surface
Byzantine mosaic juxtaposes figures, jewelry, gold and frontality. Klimt especially retains this surface power.
The hieratic face
In Klimt as in Byzantine art, the image can become presence: less narration than appearance.
IV · Hope I/Hope II
From frontal nudity to golden icon
The two works share pregnancy and the proximity of death, but they do not produce the same shock. Hope I exposes, Hope II envelope.
| Appearance | Hope I | Hope II |
|---|---|---|
| Date | 1903 | 1907 - 1908 |
| Collection | National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa | Museum of Modern Art, New York |
| Body | Naked pregnant woman, standing, frontal gaze. | Pregnant woman dressed in ornamental coat, head bowed. |
| Dead | More explicit skeletal figure, threatening environment. | Skull integrated into the decor, quieter tension. |
| Effect | Scandal, confrontation, vulnerability. | Prayer, ritual, modern icon and Byzantine surface. |
V · Image gallery
See Hope II with close relatives
The work belongs to the period when Klimt mixed female bodies, gold, symbols, decorative arts and great modern painting.
Hope II
The complete work: the square, the dress, the prayer and the skull at the center of the tension.
Hope I
The more brutal frontal and bare precedent makes it possible to measure the transformation carried out by Klimt.
Medicine
Bodies, illness and death also cross the great academic compositions.
Hygieia
The frontality of this figure illuminates Klimt's taste for almost sacred presences.
Death and Life
The dialogue between birth, sleep, desire and finitude becomes almost cosmic here.
VI · Painting seen at the museum
Hope II photographed at MoMA
These images come from the Wikipedia project Loves Art at the Museum of Modern Art. They do not replace the reference reproduction: rather they show the material photographed in a museum situation, with its reflections, its slight deformations and the real presence of the painting in space.
The painting photographed in the room
This shot shows the work as it appears as a hanging object: more matte, more physical, less perfect than a catalog reproduction.
Colors and surface
The photography makes the overall effect noticeable: the golden dress catches the eye even before the skull and lower figures are identified.
A visit document
Less clear image, but useful for understanding how the painting also circulates through photographs of visitors and museum projects.
Why add these photos?
The main reproduction gives the best reading of the work. Museum photos add other information: they show the painting as a material presence at MoMA, with real light, photographic framing and perception of visitation.
VII · Where to see Hope II?
At the Museum of Modern Art, New York
MoMA preserves Hope II in its Painting and Sculpture department. Its notice indicates the work as “New on view”, in Floor 5 at the time of consultation. As always, check the hanging on the museum website before a visit.
From inside MoMA
The large bays and urban views remind us that Hope II is read today in a very modern context.
Circulate in the museum
The MoMA visit puts Klimt in dialogue with 20th century modernity, abstraction and the avant-gardes.
Ottawa, the other Hope
Hope I is preserved in Canada: the two paintings form a mental diptych between Ottawa and New York.
Shop
Extend Klimt: gold, body and decor
To continue afterwards Hope II, explore Klimt reproductions linked to the golden period, female figures and large decorative motifs.
Sources
Sources used
The information comes from MoMA records, Wikimedia Commons, the Klimt Database and sources devoted to Klimt's trip to Ravenna.
Hope II
Notice of the work: date, technique, dimensions, collection and object number.
Wikimedia CommonsImage of Hope II
Klimt DatabaseKlimt in Italy
Travels to Ravenna in 1903 and influence of Byzantine mosaics.
Ravenna TurismoKlimt in Ravenna
Context of the journey and role of mosaics in the golden period.
Wikimedia CommonsPhotos from MoMA
Real interior images used for tour context.
Wikimedia CommonsWLA photo at MoMA
Creative Commons photo of Hope II photographed at the Museum of Modern Art.
Wikimedia CommonsMosaics of Ravenna
Images of Theodora and San Vitale to illuminate Byzantine influence.
Frequently asked questions
Understand everything about Hope II
When did Klimt paint Hope II?
Gustav Klimt directs Hope II in 1907 -1908, at the heart of its golden period.
Where is Hope II located?
The work is kept at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, in the Painting and Sculpture department.
Why do we talk about Byzantine motifs?
Because the gold, frontality, mosaic surface and solemnity of the image evoke the impact of the Ravenna mosaics, seen by Klimt in 1903.
What does the skull represent in Hope II?
The skull recalls death and fragility. Even in an image of motherhood and hope, Klimt maintains the presence of finitude.
What's the difference with Hope I?
Hope I shows a pregnant woman naked and frontal. Hope II wraps the body in gold and motifs, and shifts the effect to prayer and rite.
Is Hope II a religious work?
No in the strict sense. But Klimt borrows from the icon, prayer and Byzantine solemnity to give motherhood a modern sacred dimension.
Hope II does not erase fear: it covers it with gold, silence and prayer.
That's Klimt's strength: making motherhood splendid without making it simple, and transforming the decor into thought.
Explore Klimt reproductions
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