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

[ermingarden]

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.

Comments

[purlewe]

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

[ermingarden]

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 🤷‍♀️

[purlewe]

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

[conuly]

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.

[melannen]

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.

[lilysea]

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.

[kiezh]

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.