The painting, Danae, tells an erotic mythical story by the Greeks. The woman in the painting, Danae, and the ultimate playboy, the mighty Zeus, fell in love, but their affair was stopped by her father because of a prophecy saying a son born of his daughter would in the end be led to kill him. To foil the prophesy, her father locked Danae in a brass chamber. However, Zeus with all his mighty powers transformed himself into golden rain and impregnated Danae with Perseus. This painting captured that moment of intimacy.

If we look closer to the painting, we see Danae in the center of the painting curled up with her eyes shut and lips parted, her hand grabbing her own breast, and the golden rain falling down from above.  In a way, the amount of private sensation in this painting is almost disturbing to the viewers; we see a woman completely exposed, but meanwhile Danae is only paying attention to her pleasure. 

Gustav Klimt was an Austrian artist who mostly painted large scale painting of female bodies. Klimt was highly influenced by Japanese prints, which was fairly popular during his time. We can see the resemblance from the flat color and his use of patterns. In Danae, we can also see his distinctive style of painting: the orange patterns on the black voile hint at the Japanese prints. This painting was created during his "golden period," because of his often use of gold leaf; this technique is also used in Danae in the form of golden rain.