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AIBU?

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AIBU to be shocked at Lucian Freud painting his teenage daughter naked with her legs open?

401 replies

NotSuchASmugMarriedNow1 · 15/02/2019 17:08

Well, am I? Am I horribly surburban to have felt utter disgust with one look at that painting?

OP posts:
Smotheroffive · 17/02/2019 14:10

I was talking about the 14 yo one, which is why i said 14

NothingOnTellyAgain · 17/02/2019 14:13

Alsohuman

I disagree with your explanation, completely.

I see you can't be bothered to argue your point any more which is always fun on a conversation board!

DarlingNikita · 17/02/2019 14:18

Brian Sewell was a tit, and a misogynist. A lot of what he said was simply designed to be provocative.

Alsohuman · 17/02/2019 14:29

OK, here we go @Nothingontellyagain, I thought I had explained. You are suggesting that there is a comparison between this painting and a hypothetical one of the artist’s son with his anus visible. I pointed out that the comparison would only be valid if the female subject’s anus was visible. It isn’t. A valid comparison would be if his penis and testicles were visible in said hypothetical painting. And they are in the many male nudes Freud painted

Boardercontroller · 17/02/2019 14:42

That's also true @darlingnikita.
Still I like the quote.

Parthenope · 17/02/2019 14:46

Brian Sewell was a tit, and a misogynist. A lot of what he said was simply designed to be provocative.

I think that's a pretty charitable account of BS. Grin

There is at least one painting of one of LF's sons, nude and with his genitals fully on display -- could have been in his teens. I saw it in a LF retrospective but don't remember it well, and can't see it in Google images. But he painted lots of male nudes with their genitals front and centre.

NothingOnTellyAgain · 17/02/2019 14:52

Alsohuman

I completely disagree

A male flaccid penis and testicles in our culture are not the equivalent of a woman with her legs apart at all.

Yours is the false equivalency.

Maybe a man laid back with an erection

How would you feel about an artist painting a picture of his 17/18 year old son laid back with his legs spread and a hard on?

This pretence that in our culture there is nothing sexual about a naked woman with her legs spread is ridiculous.

And the drawing comparison with nowhere equivalent images of men/ Michealangeo's David Grin

There are so many double standards here

In our press it used to be the case that on front page mens nipples were fine, womens had to be covered
Open leg women in porn mags were fine but erect penises not

This is all related to ideas about men, women, sexuality, and a whole host of stuff that has been analysed in far more detail than there is time for here!

Alsohuman · 17/02/2019 15:04

OK, we’ll have to agree to disagree.

NothingOnTellyAgain · 17/02/2019 15:07

Fine by me Smile

easyandy101 · 17/02/2019 15:11

I was talking about the 14 yo one, which is why i said 14

There's no genitals on display in the 14yo one though Hmm

Smotheroffive · 17/02/2019 15:16

Image of male with erect penis asserts very different, and more aggressive than passive, sense, than a female reposed with legs wide open.

Reposed with legs wide open for male/female cannot be equivalent, they couldn't be more apposite.

The fact that penis is inserted into vagina, makes one the aggressor, in terms of explaining the dynamic.

They cannot be equal, they couldn't be more different!

...and then when considered against a patriarchal backdrop, the dynamic is very skewed.

Smotheroffive · 17/02/2019 15:20

easy I really don't know why you said this.

I don't need an explanation, but clearly its not OK for a daughter to strip naked for hours on end for her father. I did say this, I did explain that highbrow art is not any kind of cover for this behaviour, but it is used as an excuse to exploit here, and if you don't think her stripping naked for hours on end in that power dynamic is exploitation, we disagree.

NothingOnTellyAgain · 17/02/2019 15:54

Smother generally agree

Which is why I said the equivalent would be the son bent over showing his arsehole

No-one has said they think that would be OK (why not?)
So are instead saying it's not equivalent, carefully ignoring all the multiple and massive factors relating to culture, history, porn, sexuality, men and women etc etc that say clearly they are not equivalent.

A woman with no clothes on and her legs apart is not neutral, in the same way a man with no clothes on is. There is an added element, because you are looking at where she can be penetrated. Women are taught as girls to keep their legs closed. Men go to great lengths to take photos up womens skirts or when they are sitting down and have not crossed their legs.

To ignore all of this stuff is quite baffling to me.

Having said all that you could have a man with an erect penis looking passive and I'd be confident that a perusal of some magazines aimed at gay men might yield some results in that direction.

MyShinyWhiteTeeth · 17/02/2019 15:55

My family are naturists. There are nudist beaches and camps in the UK. When I was younger I had no shame in my nudity. I was ashamed when I realised how other people reacted to it.

I think how people view the painting says so much more about the viewer. It is very personal. It causes a reaction and makes people think about it.

DarlingNikita · 17/02/2019 15:57

A male flaccid penis and testicles in our culture are not the equivalent of a woman with her legs apart at all… Maybe a man laid back with an erection

So a visibly aroused man?

In which case the equivalent would be a visibly aroused woman.
In this painting the model is not visibly aroused. Ergo it is in fact equivalent to a flaccid penis and testicles.

NothingOnTellyAgain · 17/02/2019 15:58

To ignore the levels to which female bodies / nudity are sexualised in the UK in a way that male bodies / nudity simply are not, makes no sense.

Most men viewing this image will not be naturists.
They will however have seen plenty of porn. Whether it's page 3 / nuts / playboy for the older ones or nonstop online stuff for the younger ones.

I personally dislike wearing clothes Grin but that's by the by - the fact that some people are naturists does not erase the fact of how women and girls are thought of / represented in our media and society.

Juells · 17/02/2019 16:19

My family are naturists. There are nudist beaches and camps in the UK. When I was younger I had no shame in my nudity. I was ashamed when I realised how other people reacted to it.

Naturism is a completely different thing, as are nudist beaches.

Do many women lie on nudist beaches with legs akimbo?

NothingOnTellyAgain · 17/02/2019 16:28

I would hope so!

I would - the point is to be comfy.

In wider society, it's a completely different picture though.

The existence of naturism doesn't cancel out the highly sexualised and pornification of female bodies and female body parts all over the place constantly.

A picture of a woman with her legs spread and with no clothes on, in the UK, is going to be read as sexual by teh vast majority of the population, however the artist or subject see it that way.

Very few people would feel comfy with an image of a little girl depicted this way, which makes no sense if it's just bodies and in the eye of teh behodler.

It's like free the nipple, it's putting the cart before the horse. To my mind.

Londonmamabychance · 17/02/2019 16:43

I dislike this argument about Freud being "an artist above everything else". It is probably true that's how he saw himself and how he wanted to be seen. But artists aren't a different species, whose actions are excerpt from ethical considerations. This is that awful myth of the genius artist who is allowed to be as much of an arsehole as they want, as long as they produce what some see as great art. I don't think Freud was a paedophile or had an incestous relationship to his daughter, but that doesn't mean that there isn't such as thing as ethical boundaries. She was a minor when she was painted, thus not able to make mature and reasoned decisions. He was he father, in a position of power in relation to her, and he chose to paint her like that - whether she chose the pose herself or not. He exposed her and made her an object of his art rather than his daughter, and this seems to me ethically fraught. It isn't very possible to be a great artist without exploring people around you (although perhaps not without pushing boundaries and shocking mainstream opinion, but I think bringing your teenage children into it is plain wrong)

Londonmamabychance · 17/02/2019 16:47

Sorry for typos should have said it IS possible to be a great artist without exploiting people around you

NothingOnTellyAgain · 17/02/2019 16:54

It is possible and lots manage it

But lots of famous men including artists of various types that get a pass for things ranging from the unethical or in more common parlance "dodgy" to the outright criminal. And these things seem to disproportionately involve the mistreatment of women often young women. Thinking Kubrick, Polanski, are the 2 that srping to mind but of course the list is incredibly long!

Parthenope · 17/02/2019 18:37

In response to whether the image is ‘sexual’, do you think that porn users are going to flock to Ordovas on Savile Row to wank over a stark, alienated-looking painting of a woman with an unidealised naked body? A painting that several people on the thread have claimed is ugly, and makes its sitter look like a ‘monster’?

Raspberry88 · 17/02/2019 19:13

Most men viewing this image will not be naturists.
They will however have seen plenty of porn. Whether it's page 3 / nuts / playboy for the older ones or nonstop online stuff for the younger ones.

But this is viewing the painting from a modern viewpoint again. When this was painted there wasn't access to pornography in the same way, and the type of pornography was very different.

Alsohuman · 17/02/2019 19:21

What a low bar to have for men to assume they're all porn users. And what porn user would use fine art to get their rocks off when there's a huge market catering to their specific tastes?

Raspberry88 · 17/02/2019 19:37

I agree. I think it's sad to assume that all men would look at such a painting sexually. In the context of relationships we see other people naked in many situations and positions and are capable of applying context to that. I can look at DH sexually and enjoy his body. I can also look at him getting out of the shower and think that he looks nice and then carry on with what I'm doing.