The heavy shapes of her swaying body are placed in full light, and the white drapery that surrounds her, like a mandorla or like the shell of the Venus Anadyomene, forms a strong contrast with, or even a total separation from, the group formed by the entwined devil and saint. At the time he painted this work, C┼╜zanne had just met Hortense Fiquet, and she may have been the model for this buxom nude. Apart from the unhappy liaison that led to his marriage in 1886 and a short sentimental affair in 1885, we do not know if C┼╜zanne had any romantic relationships. In his youth he had idealized romantic, pure love, but by 1885 he had become disillusioned, as he revealed in a letter to Zola in August 1885: ΓÇÿThe brothel in town, or somewhere else, but nothing else. I pay for it. The word is dirty, but I need peace and that is the price I must pay.ΓÇÖ
