July 1, 2014 • 41 mins
The most famous museum in the world, France's Louvre, has been the seat of high art and culture for several centuries. Its history goes back farther than that, beginning in the 1200s as a fort and prison. Tour the Louvre and its collections in this episode.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to you Stuff you should know from House Stuff
Works dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm
Josh Clark. There's Charles to Chuck Bryant, Jerry's over there,
and it's stuff you should know. Okay, already yeah, uh,
(00:21):
this was a Josh Clark article. Correct, it was from
a while ago. Yeah, how the louver works? Yeah, this
is already. Apologize in advance for the French pronunciations. I'm
gonna try in best. I am too, but it makes
you sound obnoxious for some reason. Not you, but no,
I know it's me. You know, if you really go,
you know, French with everything, it makes you sound like
(00:42):
a church. Lu Is it Lua? Or is it lou? Lou?
Is it lou? You'd say it like that. I'm gonna
try as well, but I mean it's yeah, it's we're
paying homage to the mother tongue. The museum. We're talking
about the seat of culture and art. Yeah, for centuries
(01:05):
now biggest busiest museum in the world. Yeah, and apparently
it's gotten much busier in the last couple of decades. Yeah.
I saw eight point eight million visitors a year at
this point, nine point eight and two thousand two thousand ten,
it was nine point eight that was the high mark. Uh,
two thousand thirteen it was nine point three million, Okay,
(01:26):
so it's the correct the nine Yeah, but back in
nine nine it was three million. So they're up like
almost seven million people a year. Yeah. And I've seen
seventy thousand works of art and thirty five thousand, so
I think they have thirty on display in seventy. They
got a whole other half that they just sit on
and swap out. They're whimsy exactly, They're French whimsy and uh,
(01:52):
the French whimsy. Uh, the French whim that directs that
now is a guy named Jean Luke Martinez, the French whim. Yeah.
Well he's in charge of the whip, right, Yeah, and
he's got his work cut out for him, because you know,
that whole recession hit everybody, including the loof. Yeah. It
costs twelve euros for the permanent collection, thirteen for the
(02:16):
Hall Napoleon. Right. It's closed Tuesdays, but it's open free
to the public on Sundays for half the year. Yeah,
and then I best Steal Day, which if you're listening
to this when it comes out, it's coming up you
can get into the loop for free. Yeah, I think
it's free during the not I think from up until March,
(02:38):
and then from April through like September. It's not free
because there's sort of like the big summer travel months. Yeah,
and the stick to you And I think it's free
if you're eighteen to under eighteen, and then eighteen to
twenty five. If you're from the EU, I think you
can get in for free. And if you're an artist
(03:00):
or student, come right in. Yeah, for free. All right,
So that's the podcast. We should probably say what we're
talking about too, like the ten people out there who
don't know what the louvi is please. The louver Is
Um a world famous art museum situated in Paris, and
it's had a very long life. It was actually first
built in I believe eleven ninety the Compecian ruler of France,
(03:24):
Philippe august those Frenzy Uh. Philippe said, um, I was
on the edge of town at the time. Yeah, he said,
I need to protect my stuff, so I'm gonna build
a medieval fortress, and so I'm gonna build a museum.
These are the medieval times. I'll build a fortress and
later on people will call it a medieval fortress. That's right.
(03:44):
It was just your standard fortress, had a moat, had
to keep which will figure in later because they ended
up finding that junk, which is kind of neat. It's
very neat. I haven't seen it. I don't remember if
I saw her while writing this at this article, like,
I found pictures of it and came to think that
I thought I sadly went to the front door and
(04:06):
did not go inside. You didn't go in the louver. No,
pretty neat. I told you my whole backpacking trip. Like,
we literally couldn't afford We were eating like apples for lunch. Uh,
So we did not pay to go into almost anything. Right, Well,
you're blowing all your money on dinner, huh, pretty much
for lunch and sure for dinner. Yeah, Holland put a
(04:30):
dent in our finances. You didn't go in, but at
least you wanted to write I did, um. So, like
you said, it was a fortress for many years, and
about a hundred and fifty years later, it was not
on the edge of the city, which is not a
good place for fortress to be in the middle of
a city because Paris grew around it, and they said,
(04:51):
you can't really have a fortress in the middle of city.
It doesn't do us much good. So let's build a
big wall around everything, around all of Paris. So now
the Louver was a wall within walls. It stopped kind
of serving its purpose. Like you said, I think it
served as like a prison for a while, that kind
of thing. But then it was ultimately abandoned for a
(05:12):
number of years. And then it happened a few times
throughout history. It's been loved and neglected like time and
time again. Actually fell into pretty bad disrepair at one point,
Um the in the fourteenth century. I had it wrong
in the article, but I went in and corrected it.
In the fourteenth century, UM, after the Louvid just been
(05:34):
neglected for a while and unused, um the ruler Charles
the five said, hey, this would make a pretty good
palatial residence for me. So yeah, so I'm gonna take
this ancient medieval fortress and turn it into the royal residence.
And he did it. Charles the sixth did it, and
then it fell out of fashion for another hundred years. Yeah,
(05:57):
the loop just went back into a state of neglected.
But it had taken a first step toward becoming the
Louver Museum. Going from fortress to residents had to have
helped not just a residence, a residence for a king moderately. Yeah, yeah, they,
I mean they tricked it out right. Then, like you said,
(06:17):
it fell into disrepair and neglect for another century. Then
it became fashionable again. It's like people just kept forgetting
about the Louver, and then every couple of generations the
new king would be like, oh, the lou I guess
I'll move in there. Yeah, that's kind of how it happened.
Chase out the goats, bringing my tapestry. Uh. So after
that hundred years, Francois one fixes it up even more.
(06:41):
He brings in his decorator, and they got some architects
and said, let's expand it, actually make it bigger and
build new wings and remodel the old stuff. He flipped this,
uh fortress. What's the name of the show? Uh? And
he did a great job with that, and Louis the
thirteenth and fourteen said, this is fantastic. I think we're
(07:01):
gonna let's keep this up. Yeah, We're gonna kick it
up even higher. Um until oh, Versailles built, and that's
actually way more awesome. So we're gonna live there now. Yeah,
And wherever the king went, that's where all of them
aristocrats went as well, Like they hung out the court
hung out with the king, and so like if the
(07:23):
king was hanging out on Versailles, it was terribly unfashionable
to be sticking around Paris. Yeah, that's what happened to love.
It just fell out of fashion with the kings. Yeah,
and when they went to Versailles, it was unfinished and
they kind of left it that way, and then that
was when it got kind of beat up. I mean
they had it was basically abandoning a construction project in
(07:44):
the middle, so they didn't have roofs over some of
these rooms, but a lot of the louver had been
built out have been well appointed. And even though like
by the time Versailles was built, it was left again
in neglect the found nation for the building itself, the
house had been built. Yeah, you know, I wonder when
(08:05):
they're going to neglect it next. I don't know if
it's gonna happen again. It might take the collapse of
society for that to happen again. Yeah, Well maybe that'll happen.
Here's open. Oh yeah, you pulling for the collapse? Yeah,
why not? You're looking for a roadlike situation. Yeah, I'd
like to see how I do? How I fair? You
want to meet Robert Duvall is what it is? Yeah?
Pretty much? Is he did? No, it's Dennis Hopper doing
(08:29):
just fine. Yeah. Man, he's married to a young lady
dancing the salsa. He saws us. Yeah, he made a
movie or tango. I think he made a movie about it. Ethan,
that's Antonio benderis thinking he made a movie called Assassination Tango,
which I have where he was like, I think he
was a hired killer who don't say it? Yeah no,
(08:50):
uh huh man because of his love with the dango,
Oh my goodness, and called that a passion project. Get
slash box off his poison. Well, man alive. I'm gonna
delete that from my memory bank. I wonder if he
was like, you know, what hasn't been done yet? And
no one around him said, and it hadn't been numb
for a right, God bless him. Um. All right, so
(09:13):
let's flash forward a little bit to the midst seventeenth century.
Did you get that date? Right? I did. It was
just cyn uh. And this is when things kind of
this is when the lou really started, made the initial
transition towards the seat of culture in Paris, because they
housed the three academies there that were form the academy.
(09:38):
You take it, since you're all okay, um, there is
the Academy de Scripture. Okay, so the Academy of Painting
and Sculpture, Visual Arts. Yeah. Uh, the Academy Frances. That's
pretty easy. That's the official body of the French language. Yeah,
which kind of holds the French language hosta like, the
(10:00):
French language doesn't change unless this governing body says it does. Yeah,
it's all prescriptive ist. It's very prescriptive ist language, whereas
here in the States you can just make up a
word and put on the internet and if enough people use,
it's an urban dictionary and it's a thing, and they're
definitely prescription ists to like drive crazy, but t s.
(10:22):
I wonder if they have a dictionary about that for
French slang. Maybe yeah, I'll bet, but I'll bet the
Academy Frances hates it. I'm sure you're ready for the
third one. I'm so ready This is the Academy days
in scription a Bell letter UH, and apparently that is
(10:43):
deals with humanities, history and philosophy. So they founded these
in the mid seventeenth century to basically make frances h
culturally significant and snooty as they could. Well they I mean,
they're trying to protect their culture, is what they were.
I mean, France had become very like this seed of
(11:04):
culture around Europe especially, but also around the world thanks
to the Age of Exploration, and they were like, let's
let's codify this's cement it and they did. But they
moved those three academies into the Louver, like no one's
over there. So almost awesome, right exactly, So almost as
literal as figurative language can get. They moved the seat
(11:28):
of world culture into the loop. So that, combined with
the fact that the Louver was pretty awesome and decked out,
really laid the groundwork for the modern period to come along. Yeah,
and I didn't realize this, but they once academies moved in,
they started what would end up being sort of like
an ex art exhibition with the UH. And they basically
(11:53):
would have an exhibition a salon, and they would trot
out these cultural artifacts and people would come see them
and I guess someone said, hey, this is kind of
like a museum, right, and they said that's a great
idea and it should be free. Yeah, And and these
were all really huge ideas. The fact, I mean these
were from the king's collection, and the reason that these
(12:13):
academies were able to get their hands on it and
put them on exhibit for the public for free was
because the monarchy was like, yeah, please don't depose me.
It's cool. It's cool word democracy now. But I'm just
here being rich. So everybody, whatever you want to do,
if you want to show people, that's cool. And that's
how the Louver as a museum was born, was from
(12:36):
this French revolution, coexisting with the monarchs art collection and
showing it to people for free. That's right. As Louis
twenty six bowl he said, he wanted to be a
place for gathering together all the monuments of the sciences
and arts. Just don't cut my head off, that's right. Um.
(12:57):
And so at that point it was like we said
it was free for all they wanted it to that
was the people to gather there. Yeah, and this is
what is when it was officially established as the French
National Museum, and they did cut Louis head off, so
it didn't work. No, it was had a couple of names.
It was the Music Francais at first in the Music
(13:18):
Central the Arts, and then the Music de Antichrist muse. Napoleon, Yeah,
he came along after the French Revolution deposed the monarchy
and said, let's try something different. How about I'll be
the emperor, that the king the emperor, and I'll try
to conquer as much of the world as I can.
(13:38):
And it was pretty successful at it. But being French
and coming from a France where the Louve existed already,
now that all these different academies and the idea of
France owning art. When he would go conquer the land,
and we're talking substantial lands here like Austria, Spain, uh, Italy,
I think Italy was where he got a lot of
(14:00):
the art. He would say, sign this treaty and buried
in the treaty was you we give France control of
all the art. And so Napoleon would go in and conquer.
And then the director of the Louver at the time,
a guy named um oh what was his last His
last name is Dinon um yeah, he was. He was
(14:21):
the curator basically that he would send around and he
would be like, I'd like this, and I'd like this. Yeah.
After Napoleon's armies conquered a place the treaty was signed,
Dinon would go in and just grab stuff for the loof.
This would look great on that south wall, don't you think.
And Napoleon said the Mona Lisa would look great in
my bedroom, which is where you put it, didn't. Yeah. Yeah,
(14:43):
we'll get more into the Mona Lisa more later on
because it has a pretty interesting history. Well, before we
keep going on any of this, Chuck, I think we
should take a message break. I'm starting to steam up, alight,
it's so good, all right, steamy? Yeah, wipe off those glasses.
(15:10):
I'm not wearing glasses. Your contacts are fogging up. I've
never seen that happen. Um, So we're the modern history now, right,
I would guess. So we should say that Napoleon was
eventually exiled and he his museum music to Napoleon was
changed finally officially to the MUSICI de louve Um, which
(15:34):
it has has been since. And I think eighteen fifteen
is when that happened. Um, and then yeah, in in
modern times, we should say that Napoleon gives a good
example of one of the ways that the louver um
acquired a mass so many pieces in its collection. Punder
sure we talked about Egypt Egyptology, a lot, a lot
(15:55):
of that stuff ended up at the Louver until Egypt
said I'd like that back. Yeah, and even then the
lu said, well how about some of it? Um. And
remember the guy who the Frenchman who cracked them the
Rosetta Stone and we did the Rosetta Stone episode, Tom
Hanks Campion, Campion or Champion. Yeah. Uh, he was the
(16:19):
loose director of the egypt collection. Oh yeah, yeah, that
makes sense. Yeah, it really does, because I mean, very
few people knew more about it than that guy. Um.
So along the way in the nineteenth century, the Louver
was not just a museum, but it was also a
a kind of a working studio where people would artists
would great artists would go and study and practice and
(16:40):
paint and sculpt which is pretty neat um Impressionists especially
have still have a lot of work there and all
the old stuff is still there. And it wasn't until
when they said let's split this up because there's a
fancy new museum across the river, muse a day or say,
(17:02):
And they said, why don't we just do it chronologically
and said anything after you guys can have. I guess
that that's the modern collection UM, and anything else old
we're gonna hang on too. And so the the Louve
kind of said, we're going to keep all the Hellenic
Roman um Renaissance. Renaissance is huge, all that stuff, and
(17:25):
and we should say, um, these collections that the Louve
got its hands on, UM, it wasn't just from plunder.
A lot of it was from the kings that had
amassed their royal collections that were basically taken from them
for the French people during the French Revolution UM, most
notably Francois the First, and he was the French king
(17:50):
during the height of the Renaissance, and he used to
accept donations to his collection from artists themselves. So like
the michael Angelo was the slave the sculpture michael Angelo
gave that to France Fis the First. So like a
lot of these pieces in the Lews collection like are
like they belong there. Some were plundered from Egypt, some
(18:14):
were plundered from during the Holocaust, and then some were
bought to like Napoleon bought a collection from the Italians
for like twelve million francs. Yeah, which is a lot
of dough. But um, that was the borgeous collection. Uh,
close to seven pieces from Greece and Rome. I guess
it was worth the money. That wasn't his money anyone,
(18:35):
he didn't care, right, Yeah, it's like I just stole
all this money. I don't not just give it to
you for that stuff from from Italy. Ironically enough, Uh,
World War two came along, which posted a real challenge
to art in general. Um, I haven't seen the monuments men.
Have you seen that? No, I haven't heard. It's not
very good, despite the fact that it should be. You know,
(18:56):
I've heard the same thing, like all these great people
are in it, and it's still not very good. But
it's supposedly. Um, the Rape of Europa, the documentary that
it's based on, is supposed to be very good. Unsurprisingly. Yeah,
that's usually the case, but not always. Ill and I
also have to say this has nothing to do with
(19:16):
the Louf. But have you seen The Art of the Steel? Yes? God,
is such a good documentary, super good about Philadelphia or Pittsburgh, Philadelphia. Yeah,
how the city like stole an art collection? Yeah, I
mean it's super interesting. It's just go see it. I
think it's on Netflix that I think you can get
it anywhere. It's just a really good documentary. Yeah, agreed.
(19:39):
Art documentaries, man, there's nothing scizzily or there's a lot
of good ones. Actually. And I'm not even like super
art guy. You know I'm not either. I'm just trying
to pronounce French here. Well I say I'm not super
art guy. I love museums and I just don't have
the schooling. You don't talk about it. I just know
what I like to look at, you know what I'm saying. Yeah,
(20:01):
you know who is good at that? If you don't
know what you're doing but you want to learn. There's
an old PBS series called Sister Wendy, and she was
this nun bride of Christ lifelong right, who was one
of the foremost experts in art criticism and understanding art
and was also exceptionally good at explaining it in lay terms.
(20:26):
And you just watch this lady's like shows and she's
pointing out stuff in paintings that you're like, I didn't
even realize that there was there visually, let alone what
it meant. And she's just so good at explaining. So
if you want to know more about art, especially classic art, um,
but don't know what you're doing, she's a great place
(20:46):
to start. And I guarantee it's all over the youtubes
and stuff for free, because I'm excited now, sister Wendy.
All right, you'll love her, sweet man. PBS. They just
get it right, don't they. Yes, they do, go um
All right, So where were we World War two? Nazis? Yeah,
the Nazis they invaded Paris, of course, and they emptied
(21:06):
up the Louver and I'm sorry. Before they invaded, the
French people said we need to get rid of this stuff,
so they gave it to a bunch of rich people
who hid them at their various vacation homes. And it
worked pretty well. They couldn't take everything, obviously that they
moved all the stuff out of the louver. The French did,
and then when the Nazis came and found an empty louve,
(21:27):
they said, well, we're plundering a lot of art around
the world, so let's just use the louve as our repository. Yeah,
and they literally like six massive rooms in the Louver
were like packing and shipping of art. It became a
warehouse essentially. Um and they called that the Louver sequestra
San Wait, that's just English sequestration and um, yeah, that's
(21:50):
that was a pretty dark time, I would say for
the Louver. It was. It was also a very shady
time too, because um, in the nineties, there was a
Puerto Rican journal list Um I don't remember his name,
but I read a good interview with him, it's in
the Lots More Information section of this article, who basically
started doing some sniffing around. So he heard at some
(22:11):
party that like of Nazi art that was looted had
never been returned, and he was like, what that's that's astounding.
It's a terrible number. Just sort of looking in and
more and more and more, and a lot of that
art that had been brought into the Louver by the
Nazis hadn't made its way back out after the Nazis
were defeated. Oops. So the Loops collection had a substantial
(22:35):
amount of Nazi looted art from you know, Jewish families
that have been killed in the Holocaust that might still
have some survivors and the museum. And it's not just
the Loop, but you know, it's a dark spot on
a lot of European museum's history that in the art
world in general, that a lot of art that was
stolen by the Nazis was nobody made any any attempts
(22:56):
to return it after the war. They just kind of
held onto it. That's despicable. Well, as journalists from Puerto
Rico got to the bottom of it, called the Loup
out and and the nineties, the Louver started being like,
oh crazy, yeah, we do have let's find the owners
the rightful air. So they started giving them back. But
there's still apparently plenty of of um pieces in the Louver,
(23:20):
among many other museums. Again, uh, the Holocaust start is
what they call it. Yeah, are alluded not to the art. Yeah,
that's weird that it took this guy from it took
Jimmy San Juan, beat reporter from Puerto Rico. Well, you know,
it seems like museums, what do we talk about recently
went museum, We talked about repatriation. It seems like museums
(23:41):
are rightfully taking a beating in popular opinion because from
from you know, the nineteenth to the twentieth century. In
the middle of the twenty century with Nazi looting. There
are a lot of shady things that museums did and
just no one talked about and they out away with it.
And I think taking them to task now and getting
(24:04):
things right is is a good thing. I think that
there's a right way to acquire artifacts and pieces of art,
and stealing them from war is not one of them.
No war plundering, that's not on your list, all right,
I agree? Uh yeah, Another dark part of the loose history.
(24:26):
In one the Paris Commune, there were a socialist group
and basically staged a revolt and did they burn down
part of the loop. They burned down the palace Detuler,
the Tuleries one of those two um and in it
was a lot of furniture, some art, and it was
(24:48):
part of the louver. But apparently it was just by
sheer miracle that the Loup itself didn't also burn to
the ground, and they rebuilt part of the Tuleries um.
But the it was apparently like more of an attack
on the vestiges of the monarchy, which was the Tillery's
(25:08):
palace still smacked of so they weren't necessarily trying to
get at the art. No, not not as far as
I understand. But it was a big deal because the
Louver was very close by, and I think they did
lose a decent amount of art and stuff. All right.
The Mona Lisa has had a bit of a history. Um,
it wasn't always on display at the Louver. Um. One
(25:32):
time it was stolen. Well, he said it was in
Napoleon's room for a while. It was in his bedroom
for a little poster Jordan Dunking, that's right. Uh. And
then in nineteen eleven it was stolen. Um. Apparently the
the security at the Loop back then sucked. Yeah. Well
(25:53):
you were saying like it was almost like an art studio, uh,
some parts of it. Yeah, Yeah. I think that there's
a lot of access. Yeah, and there was a lot
of like a lack of Daisic latitude towards security. Yeah.
And so there was a big fat body security guard
named Maximilian Pepaldine. He left work, came back two days later,
(26:14):
because it was he left them that did before that
they closed. And he said when he came back there
were four iron hooks and rectangular shape, several shades deeper
than the surrounding area, and no Mona Lisa. No. For
a while they thought it was Picasso and Apolloniere, and
they had a group of like young artists who just
(26:35):
thumb their nose at things like the Louver. They were tough,
they were toughs, and they didn't like the establishment, the
art establishment, so they thought they might have actually stolen
the Mona Lisa as a like an act of protest. Right.
What's crazy is when they went to like search these
guys apartments, they found two stolen pieces from the Louver
Picassa's apartment, so they weren't too far off. But no
(26:57):
Mona Lisa wanted out to be an Italian estodian at
the place. Yeah, Vincenzo Perugia, and he was a repatriot's
trying to repatriated the old fashioned way pretty much. He's like,
this belongs in Italy and so I'm gonna steal it
and take it there. Uh. He got caught trying to
sell it in Florence. Um. But for a little while
(27:20):
after he was caught and before it went back to Italy,
they actually did display it at the Effusi Gallery in
Florence and took it on a little tour of Italy,
so a little victory lap. Yeah, exactly, So he was
fairly successful. Uh. And then he did get it displayed
in its home country. But supposedly they got the uh
(27:41):
Mona Lisa like directly from Da Vinci is what they said.
I don't know if that's true. And it's not painted
on canvas, so you can't like roll it up and
stick it up your shirt sleeve. It's like painted on
him on a wood block birch. Yeah, I didn't realize that.
I haven't even seen it. It's really small white poplar.
Is that a birch? No, it's white poplar. I got
(28:04):
it right in the article wrong just now. So yeah,
it was a custodin. He stole it and tried to
sell it. That was where he aired, just trying to
get money for it. But the problem is is uh, well,
it's not a problem. It's just a weird thing. The
Mona Lisa has attracted all sorts of strange attention. UM.
As recently as I think two thousand nine or ten,
(28:27):
a Russian woman who was touring Paris bought a UM
coffee mug from the Louver gift shop and threw it
at the Mona Lisa where it shattered on the Yeah,
because it's behind class. Yeah, the Mona Lisa is behind
bulletproof class. So that mug wasn't gonna do anything. But
but it's like, even if you know that it's not
(28:47):
going to do anything, that's a weird thing to do.
People have thrown acid at it. People have thrown red
paint at it. Stones don't get it um. One guy
shot himself in the head, committed suicide in front of it.
It's try to find more on that, but I couldn't.
It's a very it's a it's a weird thing. There's
this thing called Stendall syndrome. Did you see that. Stendall
(29:09):
syndrome is this idea where you are confronted with so
much great art, like supposedly, if you travel to Florence,
some people are so overwhelmed by the beauty of the
art surrounding them that they faint. Other people are so
overwhelmed that they act irrationally and want to destroy it
or something like that. Some people have been known to copulate,
(29:32):
uh when confronted with great art. And some of these cities,
like the Morning apparently, but there's this thing called Stendall syndrome.
I don't know the veracity of it, but it is
a thing. I wonder what that thing is. I just
got back from Max Funcan, which is there's a drive
up to go to Lake Arrowhead, which is where it
is where you drive up the side of a mountain
(29:54):
for like five thousand feet straight up windy roads, not
straight up. But I had that thing where like you're
driving and you're like, I could just drive right off
this thing, off this club. And I talked to a
bunch of people there, and a bunch of people said, yeah,
me too, like what is that? I I don't know.
Not everybody has it, though we talked a lot about it,
(30:14):
actually because a lot of people identified with it and
we were trying to figure it out as a group
what that is. And I don't know. I think I
ended up it. Uh maybe like a power thing, like
I know that I could do this. So you have
that urge because it's not suicidal, No, no, it's strictly
an urge and you are aware, like you know, maybe
(30:35):
I shouldn't drive you close to this because part of
me is saying like, well would happened? You know, it's
always has to deal with death though, because when I
see a cop with a gun always, I could grab
that thing right now. I could just grab it and
shoot something. That's how I feel about ice cream sandwiches.
You can just grab it, need it, you know. It's
(30:58):
I mean, I don't think it's related to end I'll syndrome.
I think some people identify them and have some more
information though, But there are people out there serious. Remember Chris,
the programmer who used to work here. I asked him
the same thing, because you know, I used to smoke,
you know, and smoke out on that deck and every
once while just lean over the side. Yeah, and then
(31:20):
I have to like get back away from it, like whoa,
you know this is I don't want to just some
part of my brain to go and like throw me over.
That's the fear. It's like some part of your brains
is gonna take control. And maybe that's right. And I
mentioned it to him and he looked at me like
I was totally crazy. He's like, no, I've never felt
that way. I think that was in Louis H. Parker.
(31:42):
Posey talked about jumping off the building when he was
on a date with her and Louis. Yeah, uh yeah,
it's interesting, but that ties back into to bring it
full circle, when the Mona Lisa was stolen though, as
a professor at the Sore Bone that worried that it
was a sexual psychopath who would defile the Mona Lisa
and be areous ways sexually. Um so I guess that
(32:02):
ties back into the syndrome you were talking about stend All. Yes,
they thought he could take pleasure in mutilating, stabbing, or
defiling her and then return her when he was quote
through with her. That's disturbing on many levels. So the
Mona Lisa's pretty much inarguably the most um famous resident
(32:25):
of the Louver, but there's plenty of other ones too.
There's the Venus Demila, Yeah, she's not bad. The winged
victory of Samoth thrace Um quote of Hammurabi. Yeah, that's
about as historically significant as it gets. And there it is,
just sitting there in the Louver. Oh, we we didn't
really ever get around to it. Like the pyramid by
(32:46):
I am Pa when was that the eighties? Um at
this this class pyramid that's basically like now the symbol
for the Louver. It's it's an entrance. Um, but it
goes all the way down to the foundation of the louver.
And when they were excavating for it, Um, they uncovered
the moat and the medieval keep from like twelve thirty
(33:08):
so cool, uh, and they preserved it. It's on display.
You can check it out. Really beautiful. I like it
when the building itself is a part of them, like
it is part of the art, like the Google him
you know, same deal. Um. And then at the end
of this thing, I said, like you you have to
see the artwork and the louve yourself to really experience it.
(33:30):
And it comes off as kind of flip, I think,
but I really mean it. That is a as a
bucket list thing. I feel silly for going up to
the front door and leaving. You know, you can always
go back. How's a kid go back? I will, okay,
I will, all right, okay, alright, kid, you're ready, Yes,
(33:51):
you're done. I'm done. Okay. Um, if you want to
learn more about the Louver, you can type that word
l O U v R E in the search part
house to works dot com and I said search bar,
which means chuck. Is time for Facebook questions. This is
(34:13):
when I have no good listener mail, and so I
got a Facebook burn on everybody sending an email recently,
and I tell folks to ask us questions and we
go through, and we're gonna do this for the next
couple of episodes and we'll just read as many as
we can get to have to buckle in. I'm gonna
go first here. Jonathan Harrop says, whatever happened to the
TV show? I enjoyed it? Is it a sore subject.
(34:35):
We had one season of a show and that was it,
but it was not renewed. But we hope to do
TV again one day and so wish us luck. And
it's not a source subject. It's a hilarious subject. It
is pretty funny. I mean, have you seen how much
makeup I'm wearing in it? And it was just awesome.
But a bunch of people asked about the TV show
and we appreciate that we had fun make it. Yeah,
(34:56):
we still hear from people who are like, it's great.
I finally I bought one on itune bring it back.
We're like, we're totally powerless to bring it back. What's
act like? Yeah? Uh, here's one from Sarah Angelica Paiewanski.
The sounds made up chicken or beef pork. Oh, I
(35:17):
was gonna say both, but I say all three now,
all right, all three wrapped up in a some sort
of role. I love it. Patrick Scott says, what happened
to the message break music written by a listener? Patrick?
We we're just mixing things up. It might come back
again one day. It has come back. Remember, Oh is
it back now? Yeah? Here there Jerry's hitting it. Sometimes
(35:39):
it came back like a few episodes back. All right,
hit it, Jerry? Did we just play that? I think? So?
How do we pick the topics? Chuck? This from Dino
is ill doogally? It's a sidically a sidically it's close
(36:01):
to that, but with eyes and case instead of the
normal Okay, go ahead take it. Oh well, there's uh
we always use almost always every once in a while,
if we have the time, UH, we might tackle the
subject that like is not on how stuff Works. But
for the most part, the best majority of the articles
that form the basis of the podcast episodes are from
(36:24):
how stuff Works. So will either somebody will right in
and say, why don't you guys do one on this? Ye?
Sometimes there's suggestions yeah, and then we'll do those more frequently.
There's this awesome little random article button that's your go to,
isn't it. Yeah, that's what I do. I'll just sit
there and click and click, and you know it's never
failed me yet. Yeah. I keep a running list basically,
(36:45):
anything that seems interesting that's not just like what we've
been doing. We try to mix it up. Yeah, we
do try to mix it up, all right. This is
from Esther Alona. She wants to hear about childhood aspirations. Um.
I kind of always wanted to write me too, and
ended up doing that me too. Um, for while there,
(37:07):
I wanted to teach. So for the follow up question,
what would you do if you weren't doing this? I
could be a teacher. For me, it was always writing
ever since I was a little kid. As a matter
of fact, I don't feel like i'm writing enough. Yeah,
but we are both professional writers, right, which is pretty cool?
Prose baby, Um, let's see, do you hear someone from
(37:27):
Stephen Gardner Jr. Haven't heard this one before, Chuck. Do
we like each other off of the air? Yes, of
course we do. Of course we do, which I can't
clearly if you've seen our TV show. You know, we're
not actors. He says that the MythBusters don't. Apparently we've
heard that before too. I've never I don't know if
that's true. I don't think that's necessarily true either. I
think that um to work that closely with somebody, or
(37:49):
this closely with somebody, just many years to plot and
plan and contrive. It's not like we just come into
work and they're like, you know, what do we have
to do today? Somebody hands us like the syllabus, and
then we do it and leave like like we managed this, Brandy,
and we do it together. It's right. So we have
to like each other, respect, mutual respect, I think to
(38:12):
respect respect, Ryan Mitchell, are there any podcasts one of
you wants to do the other refuses? I mean, week
to week. There might be a I don't want to
do that one. But I don't think anyone said like
I refused to do because we're kind of ideologically on
the same page, right, So I don't think there was
an there's anything that one of us would really want
(38:33):
to do that the other would just refuse to do.
I can't think I would. Yeah, I think you're right.
I can think of plan we wouldn't do. But none
that one of us that there would be conflict over,
you know, except for that one. I still can't believe it. Yeah, sorry,
uh chuck. What vegetable do you refuse to eat? This
is from Christina Flores. I'm not I don't eat mushrooms.
(38:59):
Oh yeah, I'll eat him and then like halfway through, however,
whatever mustions I'm meeting, I'm like, that's a bad idea. Yeah, yeah,
it's a texture. It's all texture for There's some delicious
mushrooms out there, I'm sure. And I used to eat
him as a kid, raw, like lick them and put
a little salt on him and just eat it. Yeah,
and I it's still good. But so what what's your
(39:20):
answer for me? I know you have Brussels sprouts. I
know I likes Yeah, I like Brussels sprouts. I hate
peas and I've always hated peas. Yeah, but she hate broccoli.
I think he's just taste bad. That's what I was thinking.
Broccoli tastes terrible too. It's like Dr Hibbert said, it's
poison to humans and it tries to warn us with
(39:41):
its terrible taste. I love broccoli, loves broccoli. I'm just
saying I'll make it for you anytime, like, don't let
me hold you back. All right? I got one more. Uh,
this is from Paul Palmley. Which one of your episodes
should I have the DJ play at my wedding this Saturday?
Thinking magleb or fecal transplant? But I defer to your
(40:01):
stage guidance Maglev. Yeah, don't bore people with that one.
I would go with cannibalism. Oh, that's a good one.
Good wedding material. I would go with. UM. My standby
is always um. Is it legal to sterilize addicts through weddings?
Do that and play that for everybody and make sure
everybody sits down and it's quiet throughout the whole thing. Yeah, nothing,
(40:25):
I do, Chuck. What is that smell? Is that from
Michelle Morgan, Mazoo and all these people have made up names?
I think that smell is Josh, that's the good smell.
What's the bad smells? No, it's the fecal transplant episode,
That's what that is. Uh. If you want to give
(40:47):
us some questions to answer on Facebook, we like to
troll for them every once in a while, not trolling
the bad way troll like, Hey, anybody have some questions.
That's what I like fishing trolling. Yeah, you can hang
out with us on Facebook dot com at uh facebook
dot com, slash Stuff you Should Know. You can tweak
to us too at s y s K podcast. You
(41:08):
can send us an email to Stuff Podcast at how
stuff Works dot com. That's our new old email that
works again, so please make note of it. UH and
as always, hang out with us at our home on
the web, Stuff you Should Know dot com for more
(41:29):
on this and thousands of other topics. Is it how
stuff Works dot com
Welcome to you Stuff you should know from House Stuff
Works dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm
Josh Clark. There's Charles to Chuck Bryant, Jerry's over there,
and it's stuff you should know. Okay, already yeah, uh,
(00:21):
this was a Josh Clark article. Correct, it was from
a while ago. Yeah, how the louver works? Yeah, this
is already. Apologize in advance for the French pronunciations. I'm
gonna try in best. I am too, but it makes
you sound obnoxious for some reason. Not you, but no,
I know it's me. You know, if you really go,
you know, French with everything, it makes you sound like
(00:42):
a church. Lu Is it Lua? Or is it lou? Lou?
Is it lou? You'd say it like that. I'm gonna
try as well, but I mean it's yeah, it's we're
paying homage to the mother tongue. The museum. We're talking
about the seat of culture and art. Yeah, for centuries
(01:05):
now biggest busiest museum in the world. Yeah, and apparently
it's gotten much busier in the last couple of decades. Yeah.
I saw eight point eight million visitors a year at
this point, nine point eight and two thousand two thousand ten,
it was nine point eight that was the high mark. Uh,
two thousand thirteen it was nine point three million, Okay,
(01:26):
so it's the correct the nine Yeah, but back in
nine nine it was three million. So they're up like
almost seven million people a year. Yeah. And I've seen
seventy thousand works of art and thirty five thousand, so
I think they have thirty on display in seventy. They
got a whole other half that they just sit on
and swap out. They're whimsy exactly, They're French whimsy and uh,
(01:52):
the French whimsy. Uh, the French whim that directs that
now is a guy named Jean Luke Martinez, the French whim. Yeah.
Well he's in charge of the whip, right, Yeah, and
he's got his work cut out for him, because you know,
that whole recession hit everybody, including the loof. Yeah. It
costs twelve euros for the permanent collection, thirteen for the
(02:16):
Hall Napoleon. Right. It's closed Tuesdays, but it's open free
to the public on Sundays for half the year. Yeah,
and then I best Steal Day, which if you're listening
to this when it comes out, it's coming up you
can get into the loop for free. Yeah, I think
it's free during the not I think from up until March,
(02:38):
and then from April through like September. It's not free
because there's sort of like the big summer travel months. Yeah,
and the stick to you And I think it's free
if you're eighteen to under eighteen, and then eighteen to
twenty five. If you're from the EU, I think you
can get in for free. And if you're an artist
(03:00):
or student, come right in. Yeah, for free. All right,
So that's the podcast. We should probably say what we're
talking about too, like the ten people out there who
don't know what the louvi is please. The louver Is
Um a world famous art museum situated in Paris, and
it's had a very long life. It was actually first
built in I believe eleven ninety the Compecian ruler of France,
(03:24):
Philippe august those Frenzy Uh. Philippe said, um, I was
on the edge of town at the time. Yeah, he said,
I need to protect my stuff, so I'm gonna build
a medieval fortress, and so I'm gonna build a museum.
These are the medieval times. I'll build a fortress and
later on people will call it a medieval fortress. That's right.
(03:44):
It was just your standard fortress, had a moat, had
to keep which will figure in later because they ended
up finding that junk, which is kind of neat. It's
very neat. I haven't seen it. I don't remember if
I saw her while writing this at this article, like,
I found pictures of it and came to think that
I thought I sadly went to the front door and
(04:06):
did not go inside. You didn't go in the louver. No,
pretty neat. I told you my whole backpacking trip. Like,
we literally couldn't afford We were eating like apples for lunch. Uh,
So we did not pay to go into almost anything. Right, Well,
you're blowing all your money on dinner, huh, pretty much
for lunch and sure for dinner. Yeah, Holland put a
(04:30):
dent in our finances. You didn't go in, but at
least you wanted to write I did, um. So, like
you said, it was a fortress for many years, and
about a hundred and fifty years later, it was not
on the edge of the city, which is not a
good place for fortress to be in the middle of
a city because Paris grew around it, and they said,
(04:51):
you can't really have a fortress in the middle of city.
It doesn't do us much good. So let's build a
big wall around everything, around all of Paris. So now
the Louver was a wall within walls. It stopped kind
of serving its purpose. Like you said, I think it
served as like a prison for a while, that kind
of thing. But then it was ultimately abandoned for a
(05:12):
number of years. And then it happened a few times
throughout history. It's been loved and neglected like time and
time again. Actually fell into pretty bad disrepair at one point,
Um the in the fourteenth century. I had it wrong
in the article, but I went in and corrected it.
In the fourteenth century, UM, after the Louvid just been
(05:34):
neglected for a while and unused, um the ruler Charles
the five said, hey, this would make a pretty good
palatial residence for me. So yeah, so I'm gonna take
this ancient medieval fortress and turn it into the royal residence.
And he did it. Charles the sixth did it, and
then it fell out of fashion for another hundred years. Yeah,
(05:57):
the loop just went back into a state of neglected.
But it had taken a first step toward becoming the
Louver Museum. Going from fortress to residents had to have
helped not just a residence, a residence for a king moderately. Yeah, yeah, they,
I mean they tricked it out right. Then, like you said,
(06:17):
it fell into disrepair and neglect for another century. Then
it became fashionable again. It's like people just kept forgetting
about the Louver, and then every couple of generations the
new king would be like, oh, the lou I guess
I'll move in there. Yeah, that's kind of how it happened.
Chase out the goats, bringing my tapestry. Uh. So after
that hundred years, Francois one fixes it up even more.
(06:41):
He brings in his decorator, and they got some architects
and said, let's expand it, actually make it bigger and
build new wings and remodel the old stuff. He flipped this,
uh fortress. What's the name of the show? Uh? And
he did a great job with that, and Louis the
thirteenth and fourteen said, this is fantastic. I think we're
(07:01):
gonna let's keep this up. Yeah, We're gonna kick it
up even higher. Um until oh, Versailles built, and that's
actually way more awesome. So we're gonna live there now. Yeah,
And wherever the king went, that's where all of them
aristocrats went as well, Like they hung out the court
hung out with the king, and so like if the
(07:23):
king was hanging out on Versailles, it was terribly unfashionable
to be sticking around Paris. Yeah, that's what happened to love.
It just fell out of fashion with the kings. Yeah,
and when they went to Versailles, it was unfinished and
they kind of left it that way, and then that
was when it got kind of beat up. I mean
they had it was basically abandoning a construction project in
(07:44):
the middle, so they didn't have roofs over some of
these rooms, but a lot of the louver had been
built out have been well appointed. And even though like
by the time Versailles was built, it was left again
in neglect the found nation for the building itself, the
house had been built. Yeah, you know, I wonder when
(08:05):
they're going to neglect it next. I don't know if
it's gonna happen again. It might take the collapse of
society for that to happen again. Yeah, Well maybe that'll happen.
Here's open. Oh yeah, you pulling for the collapse? Yeah,
why not? You're looking for a roadlike situation. Yeah, I'd
like to see how I do? How I fair? You
want to meet Robert Duvall is what it is? Yeah?
Pretty much? Is he did? No, it's Dennis Hopper doing
(08:29):
just fine. Yeah. Man, he's married to a young lady
dancing the salsa. He saws us. Yeah, he made a
movie or tango. I think he made a movie about it. Ethan,
that's Antonio benderis thinking he made a movie called Assassination Tango,
which I have where he was like, I think he
was a hired killer who don't say it? Yeah no,
(08:50):
uh huh man because of his love with the dango,
Oh my goodness, and called that a passion project. Get
slash box off his poison. Well, man alive. I'm gonna
delete that from my memory bank. I wonder if he
was like, you know, what hasn't been done yet? And
no one around him said, and it hadn't been numb
for a right, God bless him. Um. All right, so
(09:13):
let's flash forward a little bit to the midst seventeenth century.
Did you get that date? Right? I did. It was
just cyn uh. And this is when things kind of
this is when the lou really started, made the initial
transition towards the seat of culture in Paris, because they
housed the three academies there that were form the academy.
(09:38):
You take it, since you're all okay, um, there is
the Academy de Scripture. Okay, so the Academy of Painting
and Sculpture, Visual Arts. Yeah. Uh, the Academy Frances. That's
pretty easy. That's the official body of the French language. Yeah,
which kind of holds the French language hosta like, the
(10:00):
French language doesn't change unless this governing body says it does. Yeah,
it's all prescriptive ist. It's very prescriptive ist language, whereas
here in the States you can just make up a
word and put on the internet and if enough people use,
it's an urban dictionary and it's a thing, and they're
definitely prescription ists to like drive crazy, but t s.
(10:22):
I wonder if they have a dictionary about that for
French slang. Maybe yeah, I'll bet, but I'll bet the
Academy Frances hates it. I'm sure you're ready for the
third one. I'm so ready This is the Academy days
in scription a Bell letter UH, and apparently that is
(10:43):
deals with humanities, history and philosophy. So they founded these
in the mid seventeenth century to basically make frances h
culturally significant and snooty as they could. Well they I mean,
they're trying to protect their culture, is what they were.
I mean, France had become very like this seed of
(11:04):
culture around Europe especially, but also around the world thanks
to the Age of Exploration, and they were like, let's
let's codify this's cement it and they did. But they
moved those three academies into the Louver, like no one's
over there. So almost awesome, right exactly, So almost as
literal as figurative language can get. They moved the seat
(11:28):
of world culture into the loop. So that, combined with
the fact that the Louver was pretty awesome and decked out,
really laid the groundwork for the modern period to come along. Yeah,
and I didn't realize this, but they once academies moved in,
they started what would end up being sort of like
an ex art exhibition with the UH. And they basically
(11:53):
would have an exhibition a salon, and they would trot
out these cultural artifacts and people would come see them
and I guess someone said, hey, this is kind of
like a museum, right, and they said that's a great
idea and it should be free. Yeah, And and these
were all really huge ideas. The fact, I mean these
were from the king's collection, and the reason that these
(12:13):
academies were able to get their hands on it and
put them on exhibit for the public for free was
because the monarchy was like, yeah, please don't depose me.
It's cool. It's cool word democracy now. But I'm just
here being rich. So everybody, whatever you want to do,
if you want to show people, that's cool. And that's
how the Louver as a museum was born, was from
(12:36):
this French revolution, coexisting with the monarchs art collection and
showing it to people for free. That's right. As Louis
twenty six bowl he said, he wanted to be a
place for gathering together all the monuments of the sciences
and arts. Just don't cut my head off, that's right. Um.
(12:57):
And so at that point it was like we said
it was free for all they wanted it to that
was the people to gather there. Yeah, and this is
what is when it was officially established as the French
National Museum, and they did cut Louis head off, so
it didn't work. No, it was had a couple of names.
It was the Music Francais at first in the Music
(13:18):
Central the Arts, and then the Music de Antichrist muse. Napoleon, Yeah,
he came along after the French Revolution deposed the monarchy
and said, let's try something different. How about I'll be
the emperor, that the king the emperor, and I'll try
to conquer as much of the world as I can.
(13:38):
And it was pretty successful at it. But being French
and coming from a France where the Louve existed already,
now that all these different academies and the idea of
France owning art. When he would go conquer the land,
and we're talking substantial lands here like Austria, Spain, uh, Italy,
I think Italy was where he got a lot of
(14:00):
the art. He would say, sign this treaty and buried
in the treaty was you we give France control of
all the art. And so Napoleon would go in and conquer.
And then the director of the Louver at the time,
a guy named um oh what was his last His
last name is Dinon um yeah, he was. He was
(14:21):
the curator basically that he would send around and he
would be like, I'd like this, and I'd like this. Yeah.
After Napoleon's armies conquered a place the treaty was signed,
Dinon would go in and just grab stuff for the loof.
This would look great on that south wall, don't you think.
And Napoleon said the Mona Lisa would look great in
my bedroom, which is where you put it, didn't. Yeah. Yeah,
(14:43):
we'll get more into the Mona Lisa more later on
because it has a pretty interesting history. Well, before we
keep going on any of this, Chuck, I think we
should take a message break. I'm starting to steam up, alight,
it's so good, all right, steamy? Yeah, wipe off those glasses.
(15:10):
I'm not wearing glasses. Your contacts are fogging up. I've
never seen that happen. Um, So we're the modern history now, right,
I would guess. So we should say that Napoleon was
eventually exiled and he his museum music to Napoleon was
changed finally officially to the MUSICI de louve Um, which
(15:34):
it has has been since. And I think eighteen fifteen
is when that happened. Um, and then yeah, in in
modern times, we should say that Napoleon gives a good
example of one of the ways that the louver um
acquired a mass so many pieces in its collection. Punder
sure we talked about Egypt Egyptology, a lot, a lot
(15:55):
of that stuff ended up at the Louver until Egypt
said I'd like that back. Yeah, and even then the
lu said, well how about some of it? Um. And
remember the guy who the Frenchman who cracked them the
Rosetta Stone and we did the Rosetta Stone episode, Tom
Hanks Campion, Campion or Champion. Yeah. Uh, he was the
(16:19):
loose director of the egypt collection. Oh yeah, yeah, that
makes sense. Yeah, it really does, because I mean, very
few people knew more about it than that guy. Um.
So along the way in the nineteenth century, the Louver
was not just a museum, but it was also a
a kind of a working studio where people would artists
would great artists would go and study and practice and
(16:40):
paint and sculpt which is pretty neat um Impressionists especially
have still have a lot of work there and all
the old stuff is still there. And it wasn't until
when they said let's split this up because there's a
fancy new museum across the river, muse a day or say,
(17:02):
And they said, why don't we just do it chronologically
and said anything after you guys can have. I guess
that that's the modern collection UM, and anything else old
we're gonna hang on too. And so the the Louve
kind of said, we're going to keep all the Hellenic
Roman um Renaissance. Renaissance is huge, all that stuff, and
(17:25):
and we should say, um, these collections that the Louve
got its hands on, UM, it wasn't just from plunder.
A lot of it was from the kings that had
amassed their royal collections that were basically taken from them
for the French people during the French Revolution UM, most
notably Francois the First, and he was the French king
(17:50):
during the height of the Renaissance, and he used to
accept donations to his collection from artists themselves. So like
the michael Angelo was the slave the sculpture michael Angelo
gave that to France Fis the First. So like a
lot of these pieces in the Lews collection like are
like they belong there. Some were plundered from Egypt, some
(18:14):
were plundered from during the Holocaust, and then some were
bought to like Napoleon bought a collection from the Italians
for like twelve million francs. Yeah, which is a lot
of dough. But um, that was the borgeous collection. Uh,
close to seven pieces from Greece and Rome. I guess
it was worth the money. That wasn't his money anyone,
(18:35):
he didn't care, right, Yeah, it's like I just stole
all this money. I don't not just give it to
you for that stuff from from Italy. Ironically enough, Uh,
World War two came along, which posted a real challenge
to art in general. Um, I haven't seen the monuments men.
Have you seen that? No, I haven't heard. It's not
very good, despite the fact that it should be. You know,
(18:56):
I've heard the same thing, like all these great people
are in it, and it's still not very good. But
it's supposedly. Um, the Rape of Europa, the documentary that
it's based on, is supposed to be very good. Unsurprisingly. Yeah,
that's usually the case, but not always. Ill and I
also have to say this has nothing to do with
(19:16):
the Louf. But have you seen The Art of the Steel? Yes? God,
is such a good documentary, super good about Philadelphia or Pittsburgh, Philadelphia. Yeah,
how the city like stole an art collection? Yeah, I
mean it's super interesting. It's just go see it. I
think it's on Netflix that I think you can get
it anywhere. It's just a really good documentary. Yeah, agreed.
(19:39):
Art documentaries, man, there's nothing scizzily or there's a lot
of good ones. Actually. And I'm not even like super
art guy. You know I'm not either. I'm just trying
to pronounce French here. Well I say I'm not super
art guy. I love museums and I just don't have
the schooling. You don't talk about it. I just know
what I like to look at, you know what I'm saying. Yeah,
(20:01):
you know who is good at that? If you don't
know what you're doing but you want to learn. There's
an old PBS series called Sister Wendy, and she was
this nun bride of Christ lifelong right, who was one
of the foremost experts in art criticism and understanding art
and was also exceptionally good at explaining it in lay terms.
(20:26):
And you just watch this lady's like shows and she's
pointing out stuff in paintings that you're like, I didn't
even realize that there was there visually, let alone what
it meant. And she's just so good at explaining. So
if you want to know more about art, especially classic art, um,
but don't know what you're doing, she's a great place
(20:46):
to start. And I guarantee it's all over the youtubes
and stuff for free, because I'm excited now, sister Wendy.
All right, you'll love her, sweet man. PBS. They just
get it right, don't they. Yes, they do, go um
All right, So where were we World War two? Nazis? Yeah,
the Nazis they invaded Paris, of course, and they emptied
(21:06):
up the Louver and I'm sorry. Before they invaded, the
French people said we need to get rid of this stuff,
so they gave it to a bunch of rich people
who hid them at their various vacation homes. And it
worked pretty well. They couldn't take everything, obviously that they
moved all the stuff out of the louver. The French did,
and then when the Nazis came and found an empty louve,
(21:27):
they said, well, we're plundering a lot of art around
the world, so let's just use the louve as our repository. Yeah,
and they literally like six massive rooms in the Louver
were like packing and shipping of art. It became a
warehouse essentially. Um and they called that the Louver sequestra
San Wait, that's just English sequestration and um, yeah, that's
(21:50):
that was a pretty dark time, I would say for
the Louver. It was. It was also a very shady
time too, because um, in the nineties, there was a
Puerto Rican journal list Um I don't remember his name,
but I read a good interview with him, it's in
the Lots More Information section of this article, who basically
started doing some sniffing around. So he heard at some
(22:11):
party that like of Nazi art that was looted had
never been returned, and he was like, what that's that's astounding.
It's a terrible number. Just sort of looking in and
more and more and more, and a lot of that
art that had been brought into the Louver by the
Nazis hadn't made its way back out after the Nazis
were defeated. Oops. So the Loops collection had a substantial
(22:35):
amount of Nazi looted art from you know, Jewish families
that have been killed in the Holocaust that might still
have some survivors and the museum. And it's not just
the Loop, but you know, it's a dark spot on
a lot of European museum's history that in the art
world in general, that a lot of art that was
stolen by the Nazis was nobody made any any attempts
(22:56):
to return it after the war. They just kind of
held onto it. That's despicable. Well, as journalists from Puerto
Rico got to the bottom of it, called the Loup
out and and the nineties, the Louver started being like,
oh crazy, yeah, we do have let's find the owners
the rightful air. So they started giving them back. But
there's still apparently plenty of of um pieces in the Louver,
(23:20):
among many other museums. Again, uh, the Holocaust start is
what they call it. Yeah, are alluded not to the art. Yeah,
that's weird that it took this guy from it took
Jimmy San Juan, beat reporter from Puerto Rico. Well, you know,
it seems like museums, what do we talk about recently
went museum, We talked about repatriation. It seems like museums
(23:41):
are rightfully taking a beating in popular opinion because from
from you know, the nineteenth to the twentieth century. In
the middle of the twenty century with Nazi looting. There
are a lot of shady things that museums did and
just no one talked about and they out away with it.
And I think taking them to task now and getting
(24:04):
things right is is a good thing. I think that
there's a right way to acquire artifacts and pieces of art,
and stealing them from war is not one of them.
No war plundering, that's not on your list, all right,
I agree? Uh yeah, Another dark part of the loose history.
(24:26):
In one the Paris Commune, there were a socialist group
and basically staged a revolt and did they burn down
part of the loop. They burned down the palace Detuler,
the Tuleries one of those two um and in it
was a lot of furniture, some art, and it was
(24:48):
part of the louver. But apparently it was just by
sheer miracle that the Loup itself didn't also burn to
the ground, and they rebuilt part of the Tuleries um.
But the it was apparently like more of an attack
on the vestiges of the monarchy, which was the Tillery's
(25:08):
palace still smacked of so they weren't necessarily trying to
get at the art. No, not not as far as
I understand. But it was a big deal because the
Louver was very close by, and I think they did
lose a decent amount of art and stuff. All right.
The Mona Lisa has had a bit of a history. Um,
it wasn't always on display at the Louver. Um. One
(25:32):
time it was stolen. Well, he said it was in
Napoleon's room for a while. It was in his bedroom
for a little poster Jordan Dunking, that's right. Uh. And
then in nineteen eleven it was stolen. Um. Apparently the
the security at the Loop back then sucked. Yeah. Well
(25:53):
you were saying like it was almost like an art studio, uh,
some parts of it. Yeah, Yeah. I think that there's
a lot of access. Yeah, and there was a lot
of like a lack of Daisic latitude towards security. Yeah.
And so there was a big fat body security guard
named Maximilian Pepaldine. He left work, came back two days later,
(26:14):
because it was he left them that did before that
they closed. And he said when he came back there
were four iron hooks and rectangular shape, several shades deeper
than the surrounding area, and no Mona Lisa. No. For
a while they thought it was Picasso and Apolloniere, and
they had a group of like young artists who just
(26:35):
thumb their nose at things like the Louver. They were tough,
they were toughs, and they didn't like the establishment, the
art establishment, so they thought they might have actually stolen
the Mona Lisa as a like an act of protest. Right.
What's crazy is when they went to like search these
guys apartments, they found two stolen pieces from the Louver
Picassa's apartment, so they weren't too far off. But no
(26:57):
Mona Lisa wanted out to be an Italian estodian at
the place. Yeah, Vincenzo Perugia, and he was a repatriot's
trying to repatriated the old fashioned way pretty much. He's like,
this belongs in Italy and so I'm gonna steal it
and take it there. Uh. He got caught trying to
sell it in Florence. Um. But for a little while
(27:20):
after he was caught and before it went back to Italy,
they actually did display it at the Effusi Gallery in
Florence and took it on a little tour of Italy,
so a little victory lap. Yeah, exactly, So he was
fairly successful. Uh. And then he did get it displayed
in its home country. But supposedly they got the uh
(27:41):
Mona Lisa like directly from Da Vinci is what they said.
I don't know if that's true. And it's not painted
on canvas, so you can't like roll it up and
stick it up your shirt sleeve. It's like painted on
him on a wood block birch. Yeah, I didn't realize that.
I haven't even seen it. It's really small white poplar.
Is that a birch? No, it's white poplar. I got
(28:04):
it right in the article wrong just now. So yeah,
it was a custodin. He stole it and tried to
sell it. That was where he aired, just trying to
get money for it. But the problem is is uh, well,
it's not a problem. It's just a weird thing. The
Mona Lisa has attracted all sorts of strange attention. UM.
As recently as I think two thousand nine or ten,
(28:27):
a Russian woman who was touring Paris bought a UM
coffee mug from the Louver gift shop and threw it
at the Mona Lisa where it shattered on the Yeah,
because it's behind class. Yeah, the Mona Lisa is behind
bulletproof class. So that mug wasn't gonna do anything. But
but it's like, even if you know that it's not
(28:47):
going to do anything, that's a weird thing to do.
People have thrown acid at it. People have thrown red
paint at it. Stones don't get it um. One guy
shot himself in the head, committed suicide in front of it.
It's try to find more on that, but I couldn't.
It's a very it's a it's a weird thing. There's
this thing called Stendall syndrome. Did you see that. Stendall
(29:09):
syndrome is this idea where you are confronted with so
much great art, like supposedly, if you travel to Florence,
some people are so overwhelmed by the beauty of the
art surrounding them that they faint. Other people are so
overwhelmed that they act irrationally and want to destroy it
or something like that. Some people have been known to copulate,
(29:32):
uh when confronted with great art. And some of these cities,
like the Morning apparently, but there's this thing called Stendall syndrome.
I don't know the veracity of it, but it is
a thing. I wonder what that thing is. I just
got back from Max Funcan, which is there's a drive
up to go to Lake Arrowhead, which is where it
is where you drive up the side of a mountain
(29:54):
for like five thousand feet straight up windy roads, not
straight up. But I had that thing where like you're
driving and you're like, I could just drive right off
this thing, off this club. And I talked to a
bunch of people there, and a bunch of people said, yeah,
me too, like what is that? I I don't know.
Not everybody has it, though we talked a lot about it,
(30:14):
actually because a lot of people identified with it and
we were trying to figure it out as a group
what that is. And I don't know. I think I
ended up it. Uh maybe like a power thing, like
I know that I could do this. So you have
that urge because it's not suicidal, No, no, it's strictly
an urge and you are aware, like you know, maybe
(30:35):
I shouldn't drive you close to this because part of
me is saying like, well would happened? You know, it's
always has to deal with death though, because when I
see a cop with a gun always, I could grab
that thing right now. I could just grab it and
shoot something. That's how I feel about ice cream sandwiches.
You can just grab it, need it, you know. It's
(30:58):
I mean, I don't think it's related to end I'll syndrome.
I think some people identify them and have some more
information though, But there are people out there serious. Remember Chris,
the programmer who used to work here. I asked him
the same thing, because you know, I used to smoke,
you know, and smoke out on that deck and every
once while just lean over the side. Yeah, and then
(31:20):
I have to like get back away from it, like whoa,
you know this is I don't want to just some
part of my brain to go and like throw me over.
That's the fear. It's like some part of your brains
is gonna take control. And maybe that's right. And I
mentioned it to him and he looked at me like
I was totally crazy. He's like, no, I've never felt
that way. I think that was in Louis H. Parker.
(31:42):
Posey talked about jumping off the building when he was
on a date with her and Louis. Yeah, uh yeah,
it's interesting, but that ties back into to bring it
full circle, when the Mona Lisa was stolen though, as
a professor at the Sore Bone that worried that it
was a sexual psychopath who would defile the Mona Lisa
and be areous ways sexually. Um so I guess that
(32:02):
ties back into the syndrome you were talking about stend All. Yes,
they thought he could take pleasure in mutilating, stabbing, or
defiling her and then return her when he was quote
through with her. That's disturbing on many levels. So the
Mona Lisa's pretty much inarguably the most um famous resident
(32:25):
of the Louver, but there's plenty of other ones too.
There's the Venus Demila, Yeah, she's not bad. The winged
victory of Samoth thrace Um quote of Hammurabi. Yeah, that's
about as historically significant as it gets. And there it is,
just sitting there in the Louver. Oh, we we didn't
really ever get around to it. Like the pyramid by
(32:46):
I am Pa when was that the eighties? Um at
this this class pyramid that's basically like now the symbol
for the Louver. It's it's an entrance. Um, but it
goes all the way down to the foundation of the louver.
And when they were excavating for it, Um, they uncovered
the moat and the medieval keep from like twelve thirty
(33:08):
so cool, uh, and they preserved it. It's on display.
You can check it out. Really beautiful. I like it
when the building itself is a part of them, like
it is part of the art, like the Google him
you know, same deal. Um. And then at the end
of this thing, I said, like you you have to
see the artwork and the louve yourself to really experience it.
(33:30):
And it comes off as kind of flip, I think,
but I really mean it. That is a as a
bucket list thing. I feel silly for going up to
the front door and leaving. You know, you can always
go back. How's a kid go back? I will, okay,
I will, all right, okay, alright, kid, you're ready, Yes,
(33:51):
you're done. I'm done. Okay. Um, if you want to
learn more about the Louver, you can type that word
l O U v R E in the search part
house to works dot com and I said search bar,
which means chuck. Is time for Facebook questions. This is
(34:13):
when I have no good listener mail, and so I
got a Facebook burn on everybody sending an email recently,
and I tell folks to ask us questions and we
go through, and we're gonna do this for the next
couple of episodes and we'll just read as many as
we can get to have to buckle in. I'm gonna
go first here. Jonathan Harrop says, whatever happened to the
TV show? I enjoyed it? Is it a sore subject.
(34:35):
We had one season of a show and that was it,
but it was not renewed. But we hope to do
TV again one day and so wish us luck. And
it's not a source subject. It's a hilarious subject. It
is pretty funny. I mean, have you seen how much
makeup I'm wearing in it? And it was just awesome.
But a bunch of people asked about the TV show
and we appreciate that we had fun make it. Yeah,
(34:56):
we still hear from people who are like, it's great.
I finally I bought one on itune bring it back.
We're like, we're totally powerless to bring it back. What's
act like? Yeah? Uh, here's one from Sarah Angelica Paiewanski.
The sounds made up chicken or beef pork. Oh, I
(35:17):
was gonna say both, but I say all three now,
all right, all three wrapped up in a some sort
of role. I love it. Patrick Scott says, what happened
to the message break music written by a listener? Patrick?
We we're just mixing things up. It might come back
again one day. It has come back. Remember, Oh is
it back now? Yeah? Here there Jerry's hitting it. Sometimes
(35:39):
it came back like a few episodes back. All right,
hit it, Jerry? Did we just play that? I think? So?
How do we pick the topics? Chuck? This from Dino
is ill doogally? It's a sidically a sidically it's close
(36:01):
to that, but with eyes and case instead of the
normal Okay, go ahead take it. Oh well, there's uh
we always use almost always every once in a while,
if we have the time, UH, we might tackle the
subject that like is not on how stuff Works. But
for the most part, the best majority of the articles
that form the basis of the podcast episodes are from
(36:24):
how stuff Works. So will either somebody will right in
and say, why don't you guys do one on this? Ye?
Sometimes there's suggestions yeah, and then we'll do those more frequently.
There's this awesome little random article button that's your go to,
isn't it. Yeah, that's what I do. I'll just sit
there and click and click, and you know it's never
failed me yet. Yeah. I keep a running list basically,
(36:45):
anything that seems interesting that's not just like what we've
been doing. We try to mix it up. Yeah, we
do try to mix it up, all right. This is
from Esther Alona. She wants to hear about childhood aspirations. Um.
I kind of always wanted to write me too, and
ended up doing that me too. Um, for while there,
(37:07):
I wanted to teach. So for the follow up question,
what would you do if you weren't doing this? I
could be a teacher. For me, it was always writing
ever since I was a little kid. As a matter
of fact, I don't feel like i'm writing enough. Yeah,
but we are both professional writers, right, which is pretty cool?
Prose baby, Um, let's see, do you hear someone from
(37:27):
Stephen Gardner Jr. Haven't heard this one before, Chuck. Do
we like each other off of the air? Yes, of
course we do. Of course we do, which I can't
clearly if you've seen our TV show. You know, we're
not actors. He says that the MythBusters don't. Apparently we've
heard that before too. I've never I don't know if
that's true. I don't think that's necessarily true either. I
think that um to work that closely with somebody, or
(37:49):
this closely with somebody, just many years to plot and
plan and contrive. It's not like we just come into
work and they're like, you know, what do we have
to do today? Somebody hands us like the syllabus, and
then we do it and leave like like we managed this, Brandy,
and we do it together. It's right. So we have
to like each other, respect, mutual respect, I think to
(38:12):
respect respect, Ryan Mitchell, are there any podcasts one of
you wants to do the other refuses? I mean, week
to week. There might be a I don't want to
do that one. But I don't think anyone said like
I refused to do because we're kind of ideologically on
the same page, right, So I don't think there was
an there's anything that one of us would really want
(38:33):
to do that the other would just refuse to do.
I can't think I would. Yeah, I think you're right.
I can think of plan we wouldn't do. But none
that one of us that there would be conflict over,
you know, except for that one. I still can't believe it. Yeah, sorry,
uh chuck. What vegetable do you refuse to eat? This
is from Christina Flores. I'm not I don't eat mushrooms.
(38:59):
Oh yeah, I'll eat him and then like halfway through, however,
whatever mustions I'm meeting, I'm like, that's a bad idea. Yeah, yeah,
it's a texture. It's all texture for There's some delicious
mushrooms out there, I'm sure. And I used to eat
him as a kid, raw, like lick them and put
a little salt on him and just eat it. Yeah,
and I it's still good. But so what what's your
(39:20):
answer for me? I know you have Brussels sprouts. I
know I likes Yeah, I like Brussels sprouts. I hate
peas and I've always hated peas. Yeah, but she hate broccoli.
I think he's just taste bad. That's what I was thinking.
Broccoli tastes terrible too. It's like Dr Hibbert said, it's
poison to humans and it tries to warn us with
(39:41):
its terrible taste. I love broccoli, loves broccoli. I'm just
saying I'll make it for you anytime, like, don't let
me hold you back. All right? I got one more. Uh,
this is from Paul Palmley. Which one of your episodes
should I have the DJ play at my wedding this Saturday?
Thinking magleb or fecal transplant? But I defer to your
(40:01):
stage guidance Maglev. Yeah, don't bore people with that one.
I would go with cannibalism. Oh, that's a good one.
Good wedding material. I would go with. UM. My standby
is always um. Is it legal to sterilize addicts through weddings?
Do that and play that for everybody and make sure
everybody sits down and it's quiet throughout the whole thing. Yeah, nothing,
(40:25):
I do, Chuck. What is that smell? Is that from
Michelle Morgan, Mazoo and all these people have made up names?
I think that smell is Josh, that's the good smell.
What's the bad smells? No, it's the fecal transplant episode,
That's what that is. Uh. If you want to give
(40:47):
us some questions to answer on Facebook, we like to
troll for them every once in a while, not trolling
the bad way troll like, Hey, anybody have some questions.
That's what I like fishing trolling. Yeah, you can hang
out with us on Facebook dot com at uh facebook
dot com, slash Stuff you Should Know. You can tweak
to us too at s y s K podcast. You
(41:08):
can send us an email to Stuff Podcast at how
stuff Works dot com. That's our new old email that
works again, so please make note of it. UH and
as always, hang out with us at our home on
the web, Stuff you Should Know dot com for more
(41:29):
on this and thousands of other topics. Is it how
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