What do you say when someone asks about the painting?

The three sentences

You are standing in your own hallway holding two glasses of wine and somebody has said so what is that. You have about four seconds. Here is what fits in them.

One: what it is. “It is an oil painting. Acrylic underneath, finished in oil, on stretched canvas.” This sounds like a small thing to say and it is the most useful sentence of the three, because it moves the object from image to thing somebody made. Nobody argues with a made thing in the first four seconds.

Two: who she is. “That is Riae. She is a model, and the photograph it came from is her own picture — she published it herself.” Naming her does more work than any other sentence available to you. It turns a subject into a person with a job, which is what she is.

Three: why it is here. “I saw it and could not stop looking at it. Months later it was still there. So I bought it.” That is the true answer and it is also the only one that cannot be argued with, because it is about you and not about the painting.

Then you ask them something else. The conversation ends when one of you ends it, and it may as well be you.

The wall answers first

By the time anyone speaks, most of the answer has already been given, and you gave it when you picked up the drill.

A canvas hung at the right height, in the middle of a wall, with a light on it, reads as a decision somebody made on purpose. The same canvas half behind a door, low, in a dim corner, reads as something that was put somewhere it would not be noticed — which is an invitation to notice it. The second one generates the conversation you were trying to avoid.

So the practical advice under all of this is dull: hang it properly or hang it elsewhere. Height and light do more for your composure at a dinner party than any sentence does. If you are not comfortable hanging it in the open, pick a different room rather than a worse position in this one — where to hang it, room by room goes through the options with a verdict on each.

The apology problem

The instinct is to get in first. “I know, it is a bit much”, or “my sister hates it”, or a laugh in the wrong place.

Every one of those hands the guest a topic. You have told them there is a case to answer and then declined to make it, so they finish the thought themselves, and now the painting is a subject for the evening rather than an object in the room.

It also puts the person in the painting in an odd position. Riae, Kayleigh, Deelee and the others made the images the paintings came from. Apologising for the canvas quietly apologises for their work, in a room where they are not present to disagree.

Say what it is. Do not grade it.

Who is asking, and what they usually mean

Almost nobody asks. Of those who do, most are not asking the question you have been dreading.

If somebody pushes

Occasionally somebody does want the argument — usually a version of is this not just objectifying her. Two things are true and both are short.

She published the photograph. The women in this series built their own images and put them out under their own names. The painting came from that picture, months later, and it exists because the image would not leave the painter alone. That is a different transaction from a photographer directing a stranger.

Where the line sits is a real question and there is a real answer. If the person asking is arguing in good faith, erotic art or pornography: where the line actually sits is the piece to point them at. If they are not arguing in good faith, you are not going to win it in your own kitchen, and you do not have to.

One more, for the version of this that happens at the front door rather than at dinner: people who are paid to be in your house did not choose your walls, and that situation has its own answer — the cleaner, the plumber and the painting.

The question underneath the question

Most people who worry about this are not worried about a sentence. They are worried about what owning the painting says about them, and they are rehearsing a defence for a trial that is not scheduled.

Buying it is the easy part. The wall is where the decision actually gets made, and it gets made once. After a fortnight the painting is furniture with a person in it, and the sentences above go unused for years.

If the hesitation is really about who else does this, who actually buys erotic art is the more useful read. And if you are still choosing, the paintings vary a great deal in how direct they are — Kindly (On Gold) asks a very different question of a room than the ones people picture when they imagine this problem.

Questions people ask

What do you say when a guest asks about a nude painting?

Three sentences: what it is, who she is, and why you bought it. An oil painting on canvas, her name and the fact that the photograph it came from is her own work, and that it stopped you and kept stopping you. Then move the conversation on yourself.

Should I warn people before they come round?

No, with one exception. Warning a dinner guest turns a painting into an announcement and guarantees the conversation. The exception is people who are working in your house rather than visiting it, where mentioning it when you book is a courtesy rather than a warning.

What if someone says it is objectifying?

Say that she published the photograph it came from herself, under her own name, and that the painting was made from it months later. If the person is arguing in good faith, that is the honest answer and it is usually enough. If they are not, you will not settle it in your kitchen.

Does anyone actually ask?

Rarely. Most guests register a painting, decide it is a painting, and go back to what they were saying. The people who do ask are usually curious about who made it rather than uncomfortable about what it shows.