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