La speranza I

When Klimt painted this in 1903, his model was pregnant, and he chose to show her exactly so, nude, standing in profile, her belly at the very centre of the picture. That was close to unshowable in Vienna at the time. He meant to hang it at the Secession exhibition that November and pulled it on official advice, and the public did not see it until 1909. Look past the woman and the tone shifts. Behind her head Klimt crowded a row of grim faces, a skull among them, so that new life and death share the same narrow panel. Around her he wound the flat gold and patterned ornament he was working in through these years. On her hair he set a small crown of forget-me-nots.