agonyaunt | Miss Manners: My friend has a large nude painting of herself on display

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Miss Manners: My friend has a large nude painting of herself on display

Dear Miss Manners: Some good friends of ours, a husband and wife, have a painting of the wife in their living room. The painting is a nude from her much younger days. It is not erotic, but it is very large and very explicit and detailed. She is looking at the viewer with a direct challenge.

When we visit, we are always taken to this room. I’ve asked to go to another room or to the garden, but my hostess says she loves to entertain in that room because of the sea view, which it does have.

It does not seem there is any polite way to avoid the giant nude, short of not visiting at all. Can you think of a way?

Many social situations require one to ignore the obvious; this is called tact. Miss Manners would have thought this was one of the less unpleasant of such situations, as you will be able to have a good snicker about it in the car on the way home.

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One thing I appreciate about Miss Manners is that she has a good sense for situations in which, yes, someone else is behaving badly, but there is really nothing the LW can do about it that won't cause more problems than it solves. Sometimes "laugh as soon as you're out of earshot" really is the best option.

I unconsciously assumed at first that either the husband or the wife is an artist and painted the picture, but looking at the letter again, that's not in there – which makes the whole situation substantially weirder. (A couple who are friends with my mother have a photograph of the wife in the living room that, while not this extreme, is still rather more intimate than one would prefer for the setting – but the wife studied photography, and I believe it's her own work.)

Well, LW, you can stop visiting entirely. This will rob your friend of her fun, and you can still have your giggles.

This I think would be my answer. 'Congrats friend you have successfully raised the cost of socializing with you past the threshold I can clear to leave my house to see you.' (Not actually said out loud, of course.) But then I am not the most social butterfly to begin with.

I feel like, if you're actually GOOD FRIENDS, you can say "the giant nude is kind of distracting when I'm trying to have a conversation!" to someone. They're not obligated to change it to suit you, and you're not obligated to keep going there, but seriously? If you're friends, why is this an unspeakable subject? Would you really rather never visit them again than say something's bothering you?

And if she's noticing your discomfort and deliberately trolling you by refusing to hang out in any other place, well. Maybe you aren't actually such good friends. And that's something to know.

Oh really? this? you are upset by this? Please LW either stop going to their house or stop looking at their art.

I mean, I don’t know about you, but I would personally feel awkward having a conversation with someone in a room with a “very large and very explicit and detailed” painting of her naked 🤷‍♀️

The amount of naked bodies we see in art and advertising now I honestly don't see them anymore. I had a nude wall on my dorm room over 20 years ago which just had naked body parts as examples of photography (I was a photography major) People have bodies. We have seen ourselves nude. They aren't that different than our neighbors bodies. I personally don't understand people's hangups. But if you don't like them don't look? I barely glance at people's art anymore unless I am in an actual museum

Maybe this is a US thing, or a "I have successfully put adblock on everything and don't watch broadcast television anymore" thing, but I don't actually see nudes in advertising.

As for art, I find I generally have to seek out art, nude or otherwise, and nudes with any sort of detail - again, this might just be an American thing - tend to be in museums rather than parks and streets. I wouldn't just stumble across it accidentally.

With that said, whether or not you understand other people's hangups, you certainly understand that other people have them. There's something really tacky about insisting that you can only socialize in the room in the house that happens to have a nude painting of yourself in it, even though your friend has asked to spend time in any other room, literally any other room. And I don't really believe that this woman doesn't know that LW is uncomfortable in that room, no doubt with their seat carefully chosen to give them an eyeful the painting rather than that sea view.

Yeah, I have a friend who has a large and brightly-colored framed art print of a catgirl stripping for some catboys in her main sitting area, and it never even occurred to her until I pointed it out after she started using the space for a home business that some people who don't share her art tastes might find that uncomfortable. It's an expensive print by a well-known European artist she loved that was given to her as a gift, and she only ever thought of it as "Cool art!"

I can see how seeing a nude painting of someone you know might feel odd, but *she's* obviously ok with it - it's not like you're worried it's a violation of her consent that you're seeing it - and it's in her private home, where you were invited. Even if it was surprising at first, most people's eyes just glaze over art after the second or third time, and if you can't stop starting at it, that might be something you need to examine in yourself.

I know two people (both women) who have nudes of themselves in their loungerooms.

Person #1 worked as an artists model, and has a large nude clay sculpture they were given by an artist they modelled for. The sculpture sits on top of a low bookcase.

Person #2 has a nude painting on the wall of themselves sitting next to their girlfriend that they commissioned to celebrate their relationship becoming effectively fiance-level.

Both nudes are charming and not offensive in any way.

A nude painting that's staring out at you, no less! I would also find this very awkward and distracting.

Also I think it's weird to have "good friends" over and be like "No, we only spend time in THIS room, no other rooms! Sure we have gardens but you can't visit them! You may only converse with me in the room with the giant nude of me!" I kind of wonder if she's oblivious or doing it deliberately to provoke comments, after which she can feel superior and call LW a prude who needs to loosen up. (ETA: This suspicion is really more about my own baggage than what's in the letter. Edited to be less pointlessly inflammatory.)

Different levels of comfort with nudity (and with large portraits that stare at you) are quite possible to navigate with goodwill! I can think of plenty of potential workarounds. (Is all available seating facing the painting? If so, can a chair be moved? Is it really impossible to spend some social time elsewhere?) But if it is completely impossible to discuss anything about guest/host interactions and what kind of disconnects are happening, they are not good friends and possibly should just stop visiting.

Edited 2023-02-03 06:55 (UTC)

I have some doubts over just how “explicit” the painting is, given the general pearl-clutching tone of the letter.

(My apologies to the LW if the painting is in what I refer to as “gynecological poses,” heh.)

If it’s simply a nude, with breasts and pubes or whatever, get OVER it!! Or make an awkward joke to your hostess about never knowing where to rest your eyes when you’re in that room.

Perspective: I’m an artist who has painted various nude and clothed self-portraits and portraits of others, including one that is proudly hung in my chosen-family’s living area (it was a pregnancy portrait of the pair of them shirtless, from the waist up.)

I don't think the tone of the letter was pearl-clutching at all. LW didn't say anything negative about their hosts' morals or the existence of the painting or... anything like that? They don't say it's immoral or indecent or even imply that. They just don't personally want to look at it (especially while chit-chatting with the subject of the painting).

Personally I think "that painting is really distracting me from the conversation, sorry, can we change setting or at least maneuver so it's not in my field of vision?" would be a reasonable thing to say to a friend, whether it was nudity, the staring eyes of a painting feeling like they're following you, a painting of a hunter and a dead animal, etc. People are allowed their own preferences and reactions! "Get over it" is unnecessarily harsh.

“very large and very explicit and detailed” doesn’t come across with a ring of criticism to you?

It doesn’t appear that the LW has ever discussed this directly with their hosts — hinting about going elsewhere else is not the same as asking to move your seat or saying that the painting is lovely, but distracting in a conversational setting.

I agree that the LW should communicate clearly and courteously about this (your phrasing is a good suggestion), rather than hinting or expecting their hosts to intuit their unspoken discomfort.

No, I felt like LW was trying very hard to use a neutral descriptive tone to explain why they were uncomfortable with the painting *without* claiming that it was sexualized or calling it indecent or anything like that. It's relevant that the painting is very large and detailed; that makes it much harder to ignore or avert one's eyes from.

(Also I think the realistic detail + eye contact matters. I know people who are much more freaked out than I am by the "portrait's eyes seem to follow you" effect, but I have been known to move specifically to NOT have something with realistic eyes in my field of vision, to escape that effect.)

The overall vibe I got from LW was "I respect and like this person! I'm not trying to cast aspersions on her! But this is embarrassing me a lot and making me dread visiting her and I don't know what to say." And yeah, they need to stop hinting and try to just say it, and hope that if it comes out awkwardly phrased that their friends will be forgiving.

(And probably my suspicions of the hosts come more from my own history of encountering people who like to deliberately scandalize someone socialized with a more restrictive sense of modesty, then jump on them to mock them for being virginal/prudish/etc. It's entirely possible that nude art is very normalized to them, as it is to you, and there's no malice in this situation at all, just culture clash and miscommunication.)

Now, see, THOSE people are awful!

(And I say this as someone who has joked that I was “raised in a household of SIMS Never-Nudes,” I developed different standards once I was out of the house.)

I really dislike “Kinkier Than Thou” or “You’re Just A Prude” types — that stuff is often used to pressure people into doing or viewing things that explicitly make them uncomfortable or push their boundaries.

In this case, since it appears that the LW has never actually TOLD their friends about the issue, the hosts have not been given the opportunity to address this or make adjustments for the LW (like turning a chair around.)

If there was a hint in the letter that the hosts were being deliberately unkind or boundary-pushing, I’d have a different response.

Instead, Miss Manners is encouraging the LW to laugh at their supposed friends behind their back, rather than just ask for what they need!

Yeah, I agree! Both about the problems of pressuring people to change where their boundaries are, and that the advice should have been less dismissive and more focused on communication.

Whoever's doing Miss Manners nowadays is too easily distracted by the nude painting (I confess I nearly phrased that as "is too titillated") and misses the real issue entirely. Captain Awkward, I think, would have zeroed right in on "Have you tried using your words? You're really not going to be able to get around it, if you want to keep the friendship."

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