Stuff You Should Know - How The Louvre Works

Episode Date: July 1, 2014

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. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Hey, I'm Lance Bass, host of the new iHeart podcast Frosted Tips with Lance Bass. Do you ever think to yourself, what advice would Lance Bass and my favorite boy bands give me in this situation? If you do, you've come to the right place because I'm here to help. And a different hot sexy teen crush boy bander each week to guide you through life. Tell everybody, yeah, everybody about my new podcast and make sure to listen so we'll never, ever have to say bye, bye, bye. Listen to Frosted Tips with Lance Bass on the iHeart radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to podcasts. Attention Bachelor Nation. He's back. The host of some of America's most dramatic TV moments returns with the most dramatic

podcast ever with Chris Harrison. During two decades in reality TV, Chris saw it all. And now he's telling all. It's going to be difficult at times. It'll be funny. We'll push the envelope. We have a lot to talk about. Listen to the most dramatic podcast ever with Chris Harrison on the iHeart radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome to Stuff You Should Know from HowStuffWorks.com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. There's Charles W. Chuck Bryant, Jerry's over there and it's Stuff You Should Know. Okay. Already? Yeah. This was a Josh Clark article, correct? It was. From a while ago? Yeah. How the Louvre works. Oh, yeah. This is, I already

apologized in advance for the French pronunciations. I'm going to try my 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 a jerk. Louvre. Is it louvre or is it Louvre? Louvre. Louvre. Louvre. You say it like that. I'm going to try as well. But I mean, it's, yeah, we're paying homage to the mother tongue of the museum we're talking about, the seat of culture and art. Yeah. For centuries now. Biggest, busiest museum in the world. Yeah, and apparently it's gotten much busier in the last couple decades. Yeah. I saw 8.8 million visitors a year at this point. 9.8 in 2014. Oh, really? 2010,

it was 9.8. That was the high mark. 2013, it was 9.3 million. Okay. So it's the crack of nine. Yeah. But back in 1989, it was 3 million. Wow. So they're up like almost 7 million people a year. Yeah. And I've seen 70,000 works of art and 35,000. So I think they have 35,000 on display. Right. And 70, they got a whole other half that they just sit on and swap out. Yeah. They're whimsy. Exactly. They're French whimsy. And the French whimsy, or the French whim that directs that now is a guy named Jean-Luc Martinez. He's the French whim. Yeah. Well, he's in charge of the whim, right? Yeah. And he's got his work cut out for him because, you know, that whole recession hit everybody, including the Louvre. Yeah. It cost 12 euros for the permanent collection.

13 for the hall and the podium. Right. It's closed Tuesdays. But it's open free to the public on Sundays for half the year. Yeah. And then on best deal day, which if you're listening to this when it comes out, it's coming up. You can get into the Louvre for free. Yeah. I think it's free during the, the not, I think from up until March and then from April through like September, it's not free because those are sort of like the big summer travel months. Oh yeah. So they stick it to you. Yeah. And I think it's free if you're 18 to 25 or under 18. Okay. And then 18 to 25, if you're from the EU, I think you can get in for free. And if you're an artist or student, come right in. Yeah. For free. All right. So that's the podcast. We should probably say what

we're talking about to like the 10 people out there who don't know what the Louvre is. Oh, please. The Louvre is a world famous art museum situated in Paris. And it's had a very long life. It was actually first built in, I believe, 1190. Yeah. The Capetian ruler of France, Philippe Auguste. That was Frenchie. Nice work. Philippe said, I was on the edge of town at the time. Yeah. He said, I need to protect my stuff. So I'm going to build a medieval fortress. And so I'm going to 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. It was just your standard fortress had a moat, had a keep, which we'll figure in later. Yeah. 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 it or while writing this, this article, like I found pictures of it and came to think that I saw it. I sadly went to the front door and did not go inside. You didn't go in the Louvre? No. I told you my whole backpacking trip, like we literally couldn't afford. We were eating like apples for lunch. So we did not pay to go into almost anything. Right. Oh, you're blowing all your money on dinner. Yeah, pretty much. I'm sure for dinner, apples for lunch and insure for dinner. Yeah. Holland put a dent in our finances. Yeah. You didn't go in, but at least you wanted to, right?

I did. So like you said, it was a fortress for many years. Right. And about 150 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, you can't really have a fortress in the middle of the city. It doesn't do us much good. So let's build a big wall around everything. Around all of Paris. Yeah. So now the Louvre 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. Yeah. But then it was ultimately abandoned for a number of years. Yes. Well, that happened a few times throughout history.

It's been loved and neglected like time and time again. Like actually fell into pretty bad disrepair at one point. In the 14th century, I had it wrong in the article, but I went and corrected it. In the 14th century, after the Louvards had been neglected for a while and unused, the ruler Charles V said, hey, this would make a pretty good palatial residence for me. A good crash bad. So yeah. So I'm going to take this ancient medieval fortress and turn it into the royal residence. And he did it. Charles VI did it. And then it fell out of fashion. For another hundred years. Yeah. The Louvre just went back into a state of neglect,

but it had taken a first step toward becoming the Louvre Museum. Going from fortress to residence had to have helped. Not just a residence, a residence fit for a king. Literally. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, they tricked it out, right? Then like you said, it fell into disrepair and neglect for another century. Then it became fashionable again. It's like people just kept forgetting about the Louvre. And then every couple generations, the new king would be like, oh, the Louvre, I guess I'll move in there. Yeah. That's kind of how it happened. Chased out the goats. Bring in my tapestries. So after that hundred years, Francois I fixes it up even more. Right. He brings in his decorator.

And he 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 fortress. What's the name of the show? Yeah. And he did a great job with that. And Louis the 13th and 14th said, this is fantastic. I think we're going to. Let's keep this up. Yeah. We're going to kick it up even higher until, oh, Versailles built and that's actually way more awesome. Yeah. So we're going to live there now. Yeah. And wherever the king went, that's where all of the aristocrats went as well. Like they hung out with the court, hung out with the king. Yeah. And so like if the king was hanging out in Versailles, it was terribly unfashionable to be sticking around Paris.

Yeah. That's what happened to Louis. 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 a banding and a construction project in the middle. Right. So they didn't have roofs over some of these rooms. But a lot of the Louvre had been built out, had been well appointed. Yeah. And even though like by the time Versailles was built, it was left again in neglect. The foundation for the building itself, the house had been built. Yeah. You know, I wonder when they're going to neglect it next. I don't know if it's going to 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. Are you pulling through the claps? Yeah. Why not? You're looking for a road like situation. Yeah. I'd like to see how I do, how I fare. You want to meet Robert Duvall is what it is. Yeah. Pretty much. Is he dead or no, it's Dennis Hopper. No, he's alive. Duvall is doing just fine. Yeah, man. He's married to a young lady dancing the salsa. He solstice? Yeah. He made a movie or tango, I think. He made a movie about it even. That's Antonio Benderes thinking. No. He made a movie called assassination tango, which I have. What? Where he was like, I think he was a hired killer who... No, don't say it, Chuck. Yeah. No. Uh-huh. Man. Because of his love of the tango. Oh my goodness. You call that a passion

project. Yeah, good. Slash box office poison. Wow. Man, alive. Yeah. I'm going to delete that from my memory bank. I wonder if he was like, you know what hadn't been done yet? Yeah. And no one around him said, and it hasn't been done for a reason. Right. God bless him. All right. So let's flash forward a little bit to the mid 17th century. Did you get that date right? I did. It was just the 15th century, man. And this is when things kind of... This is when the Louvre really started, made the initial transition toward the seat of culture in Paris. Yeah. Because they housed the three academies there that were formed. The Academy... Oh, you take it since you're all fancy. There is the Académie de Pentier de Sculpture. Okay. So the Academy of Painting and Sculpture.

Yeah. Visual arts. Yeah. The Académie Française. That's pretty easy. That's the official body of the French language. Yeah. Which kind of holds the French language hostage. Like the French language doesn't change unless this governing body says it does. Oh, really? Yeah. It's all prescriptivist. It's very prescriptivist language. Whereas here in the States, you can just make up a word and put on the internet. And if enough people use it, it's an urban dictionary. Yeah. And it's a thing. And there are definitely prescriptionists that like drive crazy, but T.S. I wonder if they have a dictionary, that for French slang. Maybe. Yeah. I'll bet. But I'll bet the Académie Française hates it. Oh, I'm sure. You ready for the third one? I'm so

ready. This is the Academy Day's inscription, a bell letter. And apparently that deals with humanity's history and philosophy. So they founded these in the mid-17th century to basically make France as culturally significant and snooty as they could. Well, they... I mean... They're trying to protect their culture is what they were doing. I mean, France had become very like this seed of culture around Europe, especially, but also around the world, thanks to the age of exploration. And they were like, let's codify this. Makes sense. Let's cement it. And they did. But they moved those three academies into the Louvre. You know, like no one's over there. So almost awesome building. Right. Exactly. So almost as literal or as figurative language can

get, they moved the seat of world culture into the Louvre. Yeah. So that, combined with the fact that a Louvre 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 once the academies moved in, they started what would end up being sort of like an art exhibition with these salons. And they basically would have an exhibition, a salon, and they would try 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 these were all really huge ideas. The fact... I mean, these were from the King's collection. Yeah. And the reason that these 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. Right. It's cool. It's cool. We're a 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 Louvre as a museum was born, was from this French revolution coexisting with the monarch's art collection and showing it to people for free. That's right. As Louis XXVI said... It sounds like a Super 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. And so at that point, it was, like we said, it was free for all. They wanted it to...

That was the... People gather there. Yeah. And this is what 1793 is when it was officially established as the French National Museum. Yes. And they did cut Louis' head off. So it didn't work? No. It had a couple of names. It was the Musée Français, at first, and the Musée Central des Arts. And then the Musée des Antichrists. Musée 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, not the king, the emperor. And I'll try to conquer as much of the world as I can. And he was pretty successful at it. Yeah. But being French and coming from a France where the Louvre existed already now,

all these different academies and the idea of France owning art, when he would go conquer a land, and we're talking substantial lands here, like Austria, Spain, Italy, I think. Oh, Italy was where I got a lot of the art. He would say, sign this treaty and bury it in the treaty. We give France control of all the art. And so Napoleon would go in and conquer, and then the director of the Louvre at the time, a guy named, what was his last name? His last name was Denon. Yeah. He was 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, Denon would go in and just grab stuff for the Louvre.

Yeah. This would look great on that south wall, don't you think? Right. And Napoleon said, the Mona Lisa would look great in my bedroom, which is where he put it. Did he? Yeah. What a punk. I know. Yeah, 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. All right. This is so good. I'm Mangesh Atikular, and to be honest, I don't believe in astrology, but from the moment I was born, it's been a part of my life. In India, it's like smoking. You might not smoke, but you're going to get second-hand astrology.

And lately, I've been wondering if the universe has been trying to tell me to stop running and pay attention, because maybe there is magic in the stars, if you're willing to look for it. So I rounded up some friends and we dove in, and let me tell you, it got weird fast. Tantric curses, Major League Baseball teams, canceled marriages, K-pop. But just when I thought I had a handle on this sweet and curious show about astrology, my whole world came crashing down. Situation doesn't look good. There is risk to father. And my whole view on astrology, it changed. Whether you're a skeptic or a believer, I think your ideas are going to change too. Listen to Skyline Drive and the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Seriously, I swear. And you won't have to send an SOS, because I'll be there for you. And so my husband, Michael, and a different hot, sexy teen crush boybander each week to guide you through life step by step. Kids, relationships, life in general can get messy. You may be thinking, this is the story of my life. Just stop now. If so, tell everybody about my new podcast and make sure to listen so we'll never, ever have to say bye-bye-bye. Listen to Frosted Tips with Lance Bass on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you listen to podcasts. All right, steamy. Wipe off those glasses. I'm not wearing glasses. Your contacts are fogging up. I've never seen that happen. So we're the modern history now, right?

I would guess so. We should say that Napoleon was eventually exiled, and his museum, Musée de Napoleon, was changed finally officially to the Musée de Louvre. Yes, which it has been since. And I think 1815 is when that happened. And then, yeah, in modern times, we should say that Napoleon gives a good example of one of the ways that the Louvre acquired a mast, so many pieces in its collection, with ponder. Sure. We talked about Egyptology a lot. A lot of that stuff ended up at the Louvre, until Egypt said I'd like that back. Yeah. And even then, the Louvre said, well, how about some of it? Right. And remember the Frenchman who cracked the Rosetta Stone, and we did the Rosetta Stone episode?

Tom Hanks? Campion? Oh, yeah. Campion or Champion? Yeah. He was the Louvre's director of the Egypt collection. Oh, yeah? Yeah. That makes sense. It really does, because I mean, very few people knew more about it than that guy. Yeah. So along the way in the 19th century, the Louvre was not just a museum, but it was also a kind of a working studio where people, great artists, would go and study and practice and paint and sculpt, which is pretty neat. Impressionists, especially, still have a lot of work there. And all the old stuff is still there. And it wasn't until 1986 when they said, let's split this up, because there's a fancy new museum across the river, the Musée d'Orsay. And they said, why don't we just do it chronologically, and said,

anything after 1848 you guys can have? I guess that's the modern collection. Yeah. And anything else? Old? We're going to hang on to. Right. And so the Louvre kind of said, we're going to keep all the Hellenic, Roman, Renaissance. Yeah, Renaissance was huge. All that stuff. And we should say, these collections that the Louvre got its hands on, 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, most notably, Francois I. And he was the French king during the height of the Renaissance. And he used to accept donations to his collection from artists themselves. So Michelangelo is the slave,

the sculpture. Yeah. Michelangelo gave that to Francois I. So like a lot of these pieces in the Louvre's collection, like they belong there, some were plundered from Egypt, some were plundered from during the Holocaust. Yeah. And then some were bought too, like Napoleon bought a collection from the Italians for like 12 million francs. Yeah, which is a lot of dough, but that was the the Burgess collection, close to 700 pieces from Greece and Rome. Yeah. I guess it was worth the money. It wasn't his money anyway. He didn't care. Right. Yeah. He's like, I just stole all this money. I don't know. Just give it to you for that stuff from Italy, ironically enough. World War II came along, which posed a real challenge to art in general. I haven't seen the monuments, man. Have

you seen that? No, I haven't. It's not very good, despite the fact that it should be. Right. You know, I've heard the same thing. Yeah. Like all these great people are in it and it's still not very good. But supposedly the rape of Europa, the documentary that it's based on is supposed to be very good. Yeah. Unsurprisingly. Yeah. That's usually the case, but not always. And I also have to say this has nothing to do with the Louvre, but have you seen the art of the steel? Yes. God, that 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. Yeah. I think it's on Netflix. I think you can get it anywhere. It's

just a really good documentary. Yeah. Agreed. Art documentaries, man. There's nothing sizzlier. There's a lot of good ones, actually. I know. And I'm not even like a 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 to talk about it. I just know what I like to look at. You know what I'm saying? Yeah. You know who is good at that? Who? If you don't know what you're doing, but you want to learn, there's an old PBS series called Sister Wendy. Oh, yeah. 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. Huh. 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. Yeah. And she's just so good at explaining it. So if you want to know more about art, especially classic art, but don't know what you're doing, she's a great place to start. And I guarantee it's all over the YouTubes and stuff for free. Well, that's me. 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. I'm Mangesh Atikular and to be honest, I don't believe in astrology, but from the moment I was born, it's been a part of my life. In India, it's like smoking.

You might not smoke, but you're going to get secondhand astrology. And lately, I've been wondering if the universe has been trying to tell me to stop running and pay attention because maybe there is magic in the stars if you're willing to look for it. So I rounded up some friends and we dove in and let me tell you, it got weird fast. Tantric curses, Major League Baseball teams, canceled marriages, K-pop. But just when I thought I had to handle on this sweet and curious show about astrology, my whole world can crash down. Situation doesn't look good. There is risk to father. And my whole view on astrology, it changed. Whether you're a skeptic or a believer, I think your ideas are going to change too. Listen to Skyline Drive and the

iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. And you won't have to send an SOS because I'll be there for you. Oh man. And so my husband, Michael. Um, hey, that's me. Yep, we know that Michael. And a different hot, sexy teen crush boy bander each week to guide you through life step by step. Oh, not another one. Kids, relationships, life in general can get messy. You may be thinking, this is the story of my life. Just stop now. If so, tell everybody, everybody about my new podcast and make sure to listen so we'll never ever have to say bye, bye, bye. Listen to Frosted Tips with Lance Bass on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you listen to podcasts.

God bless them. Um, all right. So where were we? World War Two Nazis? Yeah. The Nazis, they invaded Paris, of course, and they emptied out the Louvre and, or I'm sorry, before they invaded, the French people said we need to get rid of this stuff. Yeah. So they gave it to a bunch of rich people who hid them at their various vacation homes. And it worked pretty well. Yeah. They couldn't take everything, obviously. But they moved all the stuff out of the Louvre, the French did. And then when the Nazis came and found an empty Louvre, they said, well, we're plundering a lot of art around the world. So let's just use the Louvre as our repository. Yeah. And they literally like six massive rooms in the Louvre were like packing and shipping

of art. It became a warehouse, essentially. Right. And they call that the Louvre sequestration. Wait, that's just English. Sequestration. And, um, yeah, that's that was a pretty dark time, I would say for the Louvre. It was the darkest. It was also a very shady time, too, because in the 90s, there was a Puerto Rican journalist. I don't remember his name, but I read a good interview with him. It's in the last more information section of this article who basically started doing some sniffing around. He heard at some party that like 20% of Nazi art that was looted had never been returned. Oh, wow. And he was like, what? That's that's astounding. That's a terrible number. They started

looking in and more and more and more. And a lot of that art that had been brought into the Louvre by the Nazis hadn't made its way back out after the Nazis were defeated. Oops. So the Louvre's collection had a substantial 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 Louvre, but, you know, it's a dark spot on a lot of European museums 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 to return it after the war. They just kind of held on to it. That's despicable. Well, this journalist from Puerto Rico got to the bottom of it, called the Louvre out. And in the 90s,

the Louvre started being like, Oh, crazy. Yeah, we do have to do in here. Let's find the owners. The rightful heirs. So they started giving them back, but there's still apparently plenty of pieces in the Louvre, among many other museums. Again, the Holocaust art is what they call it. Yeah, or looted Nazi art. Yeah. I'm so that's weird that it took this guy from, it took Jimmy San Juan, beat reporter. Yeah, from Puerto Rico. Well, you know, it seems like museums. What did we talk about recently? What museum? We talked about repatriation. Yeah, it was archaeology. It seems like museums are rightfully taking a beating in popular opinion. Yeah. Because from, from, you know, the 19th to the 20th century, then the middle of the 20th century with Nazi

looting, there are a lot of shady things that museums did. And just no one talked about and they got away with it. And I think taking them to task now and getting 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, no, war plundering. Yeah, that's not on your list. Yeah. All right. I agree. Yeah, another dark part of the loose history in 1871, the Paris Commune. They're a socialist group and basically staged a revolt. And did they burn down part of the Louvre? They burned down the palace de Tullery. Okay. The Tulleries. It's one of those two. And in it was a lot of furniture, some art, and it was part of the Louvre, but apparently it

was just by sheer miracle that the Louvre itself didn't also burn to the ground. Yeah. And they rebuilt part of the Tulleries. But the, it was apparently like more of an attack on the vestiges of the monarchy, which the Tulleries palace still smacked of. Gotcha. So they weren't necessarily trying to get at the art. No, no, not as far as I understand, but it was a big deal because the Louvre 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. It wasn't always on display at the Louvre. One time it was stolen. Well, you said it was in Napoleon's room for a while. It was in his bedroom for a little while. A poster of Jordan dunking. That's right. And then in 1911, it was

stolen. Apparently, the security at the Louvre back then sucked. Yeah. Well, you were saying like it was almost like an art studio? Some parts of it, yeah. Yeah. I think that there was a lot of access. Yeah. And there was a lot of like a lackadaisical attitude towards security. Yeah. And so there was a big fat body or security guard named Maximilian Papadine. He left work, came back two days later because it was he left on the day before that they closed. And he said when he came back, there were four iron hooks and rectangular shapes, several shades deeper than the surrounding area. Yeah. And no Mona Lisa. No. For a while, they thought it was Picasso and Apollonnier and they had a group of like young artists who just thumb their nose at

things like the Louvre. They were toughs. They were toughs and they didn't like the establishment, the art establishment. Yeah. 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 Louvre in Picasso's apartment. So they weren't too far off. They were on base. But no Mona Lisa. It turned out to be an Italian custodian at the place. Yeah. Vincenzo Perugia. And he was a repatriate. Repatriated the old fashioned way. Pretty much. He's like, this belongs in Italy. So I'm going to steal it and take it there. He got caught trying to sell it in Florence. But for a little while after he was caught and before

it went back to Italy, they actually did display it at the Iffusi Gallery in Florence and took it on a little tour of Italy. So little victory lap. Yeah. Exactly. So he was fairly successful. And then he did get it displayed in its home country. But supposedly they got the Mona Lisa like directly from Da Vinci is what they said. Do they? 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 a wood block. Right. Birch. Yeah. I didn't realize that. I've even seen it. It's really small. White poplar. Is that a birch? No. It's white poplar. Yeah. I got it right in the article wrong just now. Gotcha. So yeah. It was a custodian.

You stole it and tried to sell it. That was very aired. Right. He was trying to get money for it. But the problem is, well, it's not a problem. It's just a weird thing. The Mona Lisa has attracted all sorts of strange attention. Sure. As recently as I think 2009 or 10, a Russian woman who was touring Paris bought a coffee mug from the Louvre gift shop and threw it at the Mona Lisa where it shattered on the. Yeah. Because it's behind glass. Yeah. The Mona Lisa is behind bulletproof glass. So that mug wasn't going to do anything. But it's like, even if you know that it's not going to do anything, that's a weird thing to do. Yeah. People have thrown acid at it. Yeah. People have thrown red paint at it, stones.

I don't get it. One guy shot himself in the head, committed suicide in front of it. Yeah. I tried to find more on that, but I couldn't. It's a very, it's a weird thing. Yeah. There's this thing called Stendhal Syndrome. Did you see that? No. Stendhal 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. Interesting. Some people have been known to copulate when confronted with great art in some of these cities. Apparently. But there's this thing called Stendhal 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 Funcon, 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 for like 5,000 feet. Straight up. Windy roads, not straight up. Okay. But I had that thing where like you're driving and you're like, I could just drive right off this thing off this clock. Oh yeah. And I talked to a bunch of people there and a bunch of people said, yeah, me too. Yeah. Like what is that? I don't know. Not everybody has it though. We talked a lot about it 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 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 different. It's strictly an urge and you are aware like, you know, maybe I shouldn't drive too close to this because part of me is saying like, what would happen? You know, it's always has to do with death though. Cause when I see a cop with a gun, I always think 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 and eat it. I know it's me. I don't think it's related to Stendhal syndrome. I think some people will identify though and have some more information though.

But there are people out there. Seriously. Remember Chris, the programmer who used to work here? Oh yeah. I asked him the same thing because, you know, I used to smoke, you know, smoke out on that deck and every once in a while I'd just lean over the side and be like, I could just jump. Yeah. And then 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. Yeah. That's the fear. It's like some part of your brain is going to take control and maybe that's what it is. Right. And I, I mentioned it to him and he looked at me like I was totally crazy. Oh, really? He's like, no, I've never felt that way. Like, well, I think that was in Louis.

It's boring. Parker Posey talked about jumping off the building when he was on a date with her in Louis. Yeah. Yeah. It's interesting. But that ties back into, to bring it full circle. When the Mona Lisa was stolen, there was a professor at the Sorbonne that that worried that it was a sexual psychopath who would defile the Mona Lisa in various ways sexually. So I guess that 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. Right. That's disturbing on many levels. So the Mona Lisa is pretty much inarguably the most famous resident of the Louvre,

but there's plenty of other ones too. There's the Venus de Milo. Yeah. She's not bad. The winged victory of Samothrace. Code of Hammurabi. Yeah. That's about as historically significant as it gets. Right. And there it is. Just sitting there in the Louvre. Oh, and we didn't really ever get around to it. Like the pyramid by I.M. Pei. Oh, yeah. Yeah. When was that? The 80s. 80s. This glass pyramid that's basically like now the symbol for the Louvre. Yeah. It's an entrance, but it goes all the way down to the foundations of the Louvre. And when they were excavating for it, they uncovered the moat and the medieval keep from like 1230. So cool. And they preserved it. It's on display. You can check it out. Yeah. Really beautiful.

I like it when the building itself is a part of the art. Yes. Like the Guggenheim. Yeah. Same deal. And then at the end of this thing, I said like you have to see the artwork in the Louvre yourself to really experience it. Yeah. And it comes off as kind of flip, I think. But I really mean it. Yeah. That is a bucket list thing. I feel silly for going up to the front door and leaving. You can always go back. I was a kid. Go back. I will. Okay. I will. All right. Okay. All right, kid. You ready? Yes. You done? I'm done. Okay. If you want to learn more about the Louvre, you can type that word L O U V R E in the search bar, howstuffworks.com. And I said search bar, which means Chuck is time for Facebook questions.

This is when I have no good listener mail. And so I go to Facebook. Oh, burn on everybody's sending an email recently. And I tell folks to ask us questions. And we go through and we're going to do this for the next couple of episodes. And we'll just read as many as we can get to. Yes. A buckle in. I'm going to go first here. Jonathan Herop says whatever happened to the TV show. I enjoyed it. Is it a source subject? We had one season of a show and episodes. That was it. It was not renewed. No, 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. We appreciate that. We had fun making it. Yeah, we still hear from people who are like, it's great. I finally, you know, bought one on iTunes. Yeah, bring it back. We're like, we're totally powerless to bring it back. Exactly. Yeah. Here's one from Sarah Angelica Pawanski. That sounds made up. Chicken or beef? Pork. Oh, I was going to say both, but I say all three now. All right. All three wrapped up in a some sort of roll. I love it. Patrick Scott says what happened to the message break music written by a listener? Patrick, we were just mixing things up. Yeah, it might come back again one day. It has come back, remember? Oh, is it back now? Yeah, here they're Jerry's hitting it sometimes. It came back like a few episodes back. All right, hit it, Jerry.

Did we just play that? I think so. Okay. Okay. How do we pick the topics Chuck? This is from Dino Isildagli. It's acidically. Acidically? It's close to that, but with i's and k's instead of the normal. Okay. Go ahead. Take it. Oh, well, there's we always use almost always every once in a while. If we have the time, we might tackle a 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 how stuff works. So we'll either somebody will write in and say, why don't you guys do one on this? Yeah, sometimes your 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, I it's never failed me yet. Yeah, I keep a running list. Basically, 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 Elona. She wants to hear about childhood aspirations. I kind of always wanted to write. Me too. And ended up doing that. Me too. For a while there, 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 right. Yeah. 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. Which is pretty cool. Pros, baby. Let's see. Here's one from Steven 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. 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 to work that closely with somebody, or this closely with somebody for as many years, to plot and plan and contrive, it's not like we just come into work and are like, you know, what do we have to do today? Somebody hands us like the syllabus

and then we do it and leave. We manage this brand and we do it together. So we have to like each other. Respect mutual respect, I think too. 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 refuse to do because we're kind of ideologically on the same page. Right. So I don't think there was anything that one of us would really want to do. The other would just refuse to do. I can't think of one. Yeah, I think you're right. I can think of playing we wouldn't do, but none that one of us that there would be conflict over, you know? Yeah. Except for that one. Still can't believe it. Yeah. Sorry. Chuck,

what vegetable do you refuse to eat? This is from Christina Flores. I'm not I don't eat mushrooms. Oh, yeah. Yeah. I'll eat them and then like halfway through how whatever mushrooms I'm eating, I'm like, this is a bad idea. Oh, yeah. Yeah. It's texture. It's all texture. Yeah, for me too. There's some delicious mushrooms out there. I'm sure. And I used to eat them as a kid raw, like lick them and put a little salt on them and just eat them. Really? Yeah. Then I did still good, but so what's your answer for me? I know you hate Brussels sprouts. I know. I like Brussels sprouts. Yeah. I like Brussels sprouts. I hate peas. Oh, okay. And I've always hated peas. Yeah. Mushy. I hate broccoli. I don't think peas just taste bad. Broccoli.

That's what I was thinking. Broccoli tastes terrible too. Yeah. It's like Dr. Hibbert said, it's poison to humans and it tries to warn us with its terrible taste. I love broccoli. You love broccoli. I'm just like, I'll make it for you anytime. Right. Like, don't let me hold you back. All right. I got one more. This is from Paul Parmley. Which one of your episodes should I have the DJ play at my wedding this Saturday? Thinking maglev or fecal transplants. But I defer to your sage 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 my standby is always, is it legal to sterilize addicts? That's a good one for a wedding. Yeah. Do that one. Play that

for everybody. Make sure everybody sits down and is quiet throughout the whole thing. Yeah. You got one more toast. No, nothing. I do. Chuck. What is that smell? Is that from Michelle Morgan Mazzou? And all these people have made up names, I think. Yeah. That smell is Josh. That's the good smell. Oh, okay. What's the bad smell? Oh, then it's me. No, it's the fecal transplant episode. That's what that is. If you want to give us some questions to answer on Facebook, we like to troll for them every once in a while. Not troll in the bad way. Troll like, hey, anybody have some questions? Yeah, that's what I mean. Like fishing trolling. Yeah. You can hang out with us on facebook.com at facebook.com slash stuff you should know.

You can tweet to us too at SYSK podcast. You can send us an email to stuffpodcast at howstuffworks.com. That's our new old email that works again. So please make note of it. And as always, hang out with us at our home on the web, stuffyoushouldknow.com. Hey, I'm Lance Bass, host of the new iHeart podcast, Frosted Tips with Lance Bass. Do you ever think to yourself, what advice would Lance Bass and my favorite boy bands give me in this situation? If you do, you've come to the right place because I'm here to help. And a different hot, sexy teen crush boy bander each week to guide you through life. Tell everybody, ya everybody, about my new podcast and make sure to listen so we'll never, ever have to say bye,

bye, bye. Listen to Frosted Tips with Lance Bass on the iHeart radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to podcasts. On the podcast, hey dude, the 90s called David Lasher and Christine Taylor, stars of the cult classic show, Hey Dude, bring you back to the days of slip dresses and choker necklaces. We're gonna use Hey Dude as our jumping off point, but we are going to unpack and dive back into the decade of the 90s. We lived it, and now we're calling on all of our friends to come back and relive it. Listen to Hey Dude, the 90s called on the iHeart radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.