Man Between Vice and Virtue

Against the backdrop of a desert landscape, a naked man appears to advance towards a floating female figure clothed in a virginal white dress that emanates in the right portion of the painting.

The man in the painting is followed by a group of women clothed in transparent flowery attire. The group seems to dance and sing in order to attract his attention. In the center of the group is a woman in black dress with peacock feathers and butterfly wings, which symbolize vice in its many forms.^[1]

The work is signed "Henri Martin 92" in the lower right corner.

Martin adopted a divisionist (pointillist) technique upon returning to Paris from Italy in the 1880s^[2] His style was slowly transitioning from realism. This work in particular is unusual because of the realist portrayal of the man's body.