Michigan courthouse will keep paintings with nude figures

PAW PAW, Mich. – Officials in a Michigan county have reversed course and won’t cover up courthouse paintings that have nude figures and bare-breasted women.

WOOD-TV says Van Buren County commissioners heard from people on both sides Tuesday and decided to leave the paintings alone.

One painting in a stairwell shows a bare-breasted woman holding a decapitated head and a spear. Another painting above a judge’s bench shows a nude man and nude woman begging a woman for mercy. Breasts are exposed on one woman. One painting could be more than 100 years old.

Judge Kathleen Brickley says the paintings are contrary to efforts to “de-escalate trauma rather than revisit trauma.”

But Rose Rook spoke to commissioners and asked, “Do we have to shelter everything?” She says there are attempts to get rid of everything that “makes us uncomfortable.”