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

[NotSuchASmugMarriedNow1]

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

I've had another look at the painting and I can't see anything remotely sexual in it.

It's a bloody good painting though. I love the pose she chose, and think the whole painting is very expressive.

I think that from this pic he looks absorbed in his work and quite detached. In the attached link is a photo showing Lucian Freud painting his daughter as she poses for him. (From her perspective, with the painting in front of her).

curiator.com/art/david-dawson/lucian-freud-in-his-atelier-painting-his-daughter-bella

MrsKoala, I just want to make it clear that the second half of what you've bolded ('Well, that is precisely what an artist DOES do. They're concerned with observing and representing form, whether that form is a human body or a tree.') is what I said, but the first sentence ('You couldn’t look at your daughters vulva objectively surely whilst trying to capture what her nakedness says') WAS NOT ME.

Oh, and there's a very good book called 'Man in a Blue Scarf' by Martin Gayford, about sitting for Freud.

I don't know why people believe that male artists don't notice people are nude

No one has said artists don't notice that people are nude. What a strange comment.

So what are we supposed to take from your comment that "And the thing about painting is that an artist approaches EVERY subject in the same way –they scrutinise and observe and hope to represent as best they can whatever that subject is. A naked person, male, female, daughter, paid model, whoever, is the same to an artist's eye as Van Goh's wicker-seated chair, Cezanne's apples or Andy Warhol's cats."

Same as a chair my arse.

BTW, I seemed to miss a whole page of this discussion, just noticed that there'd already been discussion about Gill.

Yes - sorry Darling Nikita. I wanted to bold both and to address both points but I see it comes across as a schizophrenic post by one poster!

You should have included the portrait in your OP.

I think you have to look at this in the context of Freud’s daughter having grown up around artists. While I’m not saying I feel entirely ok about it, I would imagine that she had seen her father painting nudes her whole life, and was probably reasonably comfortable with the idea of posing for him naked. I

I think it is a beautiful painting. I loved life class when I was a student and agree with PPs saying that your primary focus when painting from life is the form, texture etc, not the fact that the model is nude.

I don't think it's incestuous in a literal way. She doesn't mention sexual abuse, and I don't get the impression that he was physically aroused by her.

I think it's likely that the relationship blurred some lines with emotional incest, in terms of their dynamic at the time. Reading the article made me think it was like they were role playing a different dynamic to father and daughter, she was experimenting with different roles as a new young adult.

The usual boundaries that exist between a parent and child have been pushed to a peculiar place. I honestly don't think he molested her or wanted to harm her, but I think he broached a boundary that he should not have broached, if her psychological health was his priority.

But of course, painting was his priority.

Anyone now prepared to excuse a father prepared to paint his child in this pose?

@bibbitybobbityyhat I prefer "amateur Robert Hughes," thanks

I searched for the image as I was intrigued.... the painting itself is fine but can see why it causes outrage....

Then next to Rose comes up John Currins art pieces.... I'm not a prude by any means but I'm sure his collection has caused a few heart failures if displayed in normal homes

Grim that he wanted to paint her like that and odd that she wanted to be in that revealing pose.

In front of him I mean

Yes, yes, of course if you're an artist you're totally focused on the form and the shapes and the light an dat.

But if it's a relative of yours with their genitals on display ... that's not taboo to say the least ? Come on! Stop pretending it isn't OFF.

He was prob desperate to paint someone nude he didn't have to shag as well.

That always happened. With the women; Andrew Parker-Bowles, not so much. Probably.

Same as a chair my arse.

Well, that was true of Lucian Freud. He would spend the same amount of time and effort painting picture of a horse's hindquarters, or a cushion thrown on the ground, or a patch of leaves where his dog had been buried, as a human being. He says somewhere that he's always treated the head as 'just another limb' in his full-length portraits. I imagine he felt similarly about sex organs.

And he paints almost all of his full-length nudes lying down in similar poses, so it's not that he singled his daughter out for this one.

(He drew his mother the day after she'd died, too.)

And given that he was a charismatic monster, and had at least 14 children two from his first marriage, and 12 by various mistresses, many of whom only found out about one another later on several of his daughters (many famous in their own right -- Bella Freud, Emma Freud, Susie Boyt) who've talked about it in interviews mention competing for his attention, so I can imagine that being part of the attraction.

Personally I find Balthus's pubescent girls far creepier.

"You should have included the portrait in your OP."

I should have,Essmee but I didn't have the stomach for it.

Emma Freud is not Lucien Freud's daughter. She is Clement's daughter. Clement is a whole other story.

Sorry, confused my Freud offspring.

Parthenope I use St James's Park Station every day. So much that I don't look up. I don't think we should destroy Eric Gill's carvings because he abused his daughters. I am capable of holding the two concepts in my head.

3 billion females on the planet and he had to choose his daughter to paint naked with her legs open

She was 17-18. She could have said no.

You are being very unreasonable. Just because YOU attach incestuous feelings to it doesn't mean Freud or his daughter did. it's all in your mind.

Have you read the article???

I think op was asking the question in the spirit of what is normal between fathers and daughters.

The fact that he was a great painter doesn't make a jot of difference to the average person. Only the intellectually superior among us are willing to suspend societal norms on his behalf.

Us plebs think it's just nasty.

Not sure about being a pleb but maybe lacking in emotional insight and possibly education?

You don't have to attach sexual feelings to nakedness.

I see that no one who finds the picture odd, has actually said why his daughter was okay about it. It takes 2 to paint a portrait. painter and sitter.

Some behaviour may be unusual but it doesn't mean there was anything wrong with it. That's a judgement/ opinion.

Only those involved know how it was.

@LanaorAna2 Ha! Can we talk about how terrible that Andrew Parker-Bowles portrait is?