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'm uncomfortable with labelling art as good or bad...think that opens up a whole kettle of fish.

Everyone is equal in the most egalitarian of worlds. No point in being good at anything.

made everyone look like ugly monsters.

Surely that's better than representing women as perfect, smooth, nymph like creatures?

No nobody made me the art police but as far as figurative painting goes, Freud is often labelled as an amazing figurative painter.
It’s kid of like labelling manufactured pop bands as incredible classical musicians. Freuds work has a definite undeniable position in contemporary pop culture, but he wasn’t the genius of painting people often suggest.

@raspberry that’s interesting.
Personally I think hiding behind this veneer
....I won’t sexualise you, I’ll paint you like an old piece of meat...I’m more like a surgeon than a voyeur....
that kind of attitude was a clever guise that tricked women into exposing more of themselves than they would normally.

I don’t agree with your low opinion of Freud at all, Boarder. He’s far from among my favourite artists, and he’s as uneven as anyone who’s that prolific over a long career, but I think his best work is beautiful and astonishing.

And I think that comparing a life model at an art class to a model doing a long sitting for a specific artist, with whom they may have a long term relationship of mutual respect, is comparing apples and pears.

There was a BBC documentary about Maggi Hambling a while back which showed her drawing a nude (male) model — she was incredibly demanding and he was holding long poses that were both ‘explicit’ in the sense that they fully exposed his genitals and anus, and incredibly athletic/contorted — sweat was dripping off him and he was shaking with effort. It was very uncomfortable to watch, but it was clear he viewed it as part of his job.

But it's not really. The form of pop is so different, it's intention and its use is different to classical music. I'm not saying he's a great painter...I don't know, I've never seen one in the flesh. I just don't think that great painting is great art. The most boring paintings I've ever seen have been beautifully painted. I think the painting in question is incredible. It's eye-catching, it's vivid and it's provocative...isn't that what great art is about?

Generally if you portray yourself as an expert or indeed unshockable, uninterested, people expose more. If you pretend what you’re doing isn’t sexual, despite the fact that you are a highly sexed individual with thousands of notches on the bedpost... well to me it’s a bit disingenuous.

This whole thread is full of pretentious twaddle, people who're intent on proving to the rest of us that we're prurient, or don't understand what artists see, they could be looking at a chair, blahdee blahdee blah Those explaining to the rest of us that we're simply not educated, not emotionally savvy, don't understand what we're seeing... they know nothing about our education or background or knowledge of art history

Absolutely agree with this. Why is the film and music industry rife with sex abuse ? Because of people minimising abhorrent behaviour because of ‘art’.

Also - for the posters saying yes but ‘she chose the pose’ that’s classic victim blaming, many abused (sexually or not) children are compliant and eager to please - it’s called grooming.

Like all Freud’s work, I think it is an amazing painting.

I don’t find it at all creepy it sexual. It is a woman, her body. I don’t see why bodies need to be coyly draped or unnatural positions maintained to ensure ‘modesty ‘. I find the notion of ‘modesty’ creepy, except in the context of an individual wishing to maintain and manage their own privacy boundaries, wherever those boundaries may fall.

Classical sculpture abounds with male genitalia.

Her crotch area is no more or less important in tne painting than armpits, knees, face....

I think he was a vile man. But that’s a different question.

Go to a life drawing class.Tell the model you need her to sit with her legs spread She’d tell you to fuck right off.

I must have had some very unusual life models then because I have painted many similar poses to this. My mock a level painting (24 years ago) was a man in exactly this position.

made everyone look like ugly monsters. I got the feeling of some of them being distorted from the norm but not ugly. I really loath the word ugly but that's just me. And like the PP stated, better that than the so called perfection. At least they a real.

Well the model may choose it!
Men like this kind of thing 😀
I’m sure if you put a general ad out there for a fella to stand in front of a group of a level students with his knob out there’d be plenty of takers 😂😂😂

They don’t look real!
Look at the queen picture. It’s hilarious!
Look at the big fat Hockney picture, it’s bizarre

The panting it's self doesn't bother me at all. The context is what is slightly worrying. The article sounds like a young girl trying desperately to maintain its all "her" choice but sounds exactly like a girl desperate for the attention her of father using her choices to justify his behaviour.

If this was painted yesterday would we be justifying it? Or would social services be round? (To protect the younger children not 18 year old) let's not forgot he did paint his 14 years old as well.

But she took her clothes off and posed that way without him asking

They don’t look real! Maybe raw would be a better word.

I see it like a “flying monkeys of the harem” situation.
All these artists are surrounded by these people that wax lyrical about their genius, their demanding schedule, their uncompromising work ethic blah blah blah.
If this was your dad, and he had no interest in you, yet everyone was writing about how amazing he was...telling you about his brilliance and genius....
Wouldn’t it be a head fuck.

These are professional models Boarder. We also had women choose similar poses, They usually lay on the bed and pull one leg up so their knee is pointing up and their foot almost touching their bum then let their knee drop to the side and rest their bent leg on a cushion. Then their other leg is straight and sort of diagonal. It seems to be quite a comfortable pose to lay in for hours. Sometimes your easel is positioned in the part of the room where you see the most, sometimes it isn't.

They don’t look real!

Art doesn't need to look real!!!

I didn’t say it does !

That was in response to somebody who said they look ‘real’but later modified that to ‘raw’

I'm sorry, but no child/woman I know at 17/18 would pose for their father with their legs open.

They had been groomed to feel this was an acceptable practice, and therefore consented without knowing differently.

Painter or not, there is no way in hell any 17/18 yr would willingly want their father to see their vulva.

Surely it's less about the finished painting than the sitting done by the models? The paintings themselves aren't particularly detailed and even in 'Rose' it's just really public hair that's visible. I wouldn't call them graphic.

Surely it's less about the finished painting than the sitting done by the models?

Not really no. The discussion IS about the sitting.

Sorry, was confused by the chatter about whether the paintings look real and if he's a good painter.