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While James Ensor used allegory, abstraction, and ambiguity to assert a scathing critique of society and politics in "Christ's Entry into Brussels in 1889", Cézanne employed the same devices on a more intimate scale to explore sexuality and power. Here a nude woman enthralls a group of men: a bishop holding a staff, an artist at easel, trumpeters, wrestler, and many others whose identities are less clear. The bald figure along the bottom edge may be Cézanne himself. As the men strain to gaze at the regal, anonymous muse, she faces them with red, sightless eye sockets, indifferent to their attention. Her body creates a centripetal force around which masklike faces swirl in a frenzy of desire, fear, and confusion.
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