Explore the Relation to Courbet about the Analysis of this artwork.
Art historians have compared the work to Gustave Courbet's The Painter's Studio (1855). In Courbet's work, an artist is depicted painting a landscape before a group. A woman, thought to be the artist's mistress, stands  behind him, but he does not look at her. In The Eternal Feminine, by contrast, Cézanne places the woman in the center of the canvas, and she displays her body with no shame, unlike the woman in Courbet's painting, who holds a drape to partially cover her body. 
Cézanne's painting nonetheless resembles Courbet's composition in dividing the figures into a left and right group. The men on the right represent the art world, with the figures consisting of a painter, a conductor and entertainers. The men on the left represent a social world, with the figures including a financier, soldier, bishop, and banker. A man in the foreground of the painting seems representative of Cézanne himself, with his hat floating off into the air.
The Painter's Studio Gustave Courbet's Gustave Courbet Cézanne