In a painting he later described as "completely characteristic" of his work before World War I, Otto Dix envisions a nun's internal struggle between her hope for eventual heavenly rewards and her desire for immediate worldly pleasures. The jarring, acidic colors on the nun's face and hands contrast sharply with the anguish and torment conveyed by her downcast eyes and furrowed brow. Dix matches the deep lines and fractured planes of her face to the soaring vaults of the Gothic cathedral in which she appears. Within this holy space, she is torn by competing desires. On the left, a radiating, vulva-shaped form pushes aside the agonized and bloody Jesus. Opposite, a nude cradles her own glowing red stomach, alluding to motherhood, another earthly experience the nun must renounce for her faith.