Latest / Aaron Mahnke's Cabinet of Curiosities / Keep the Tip

Transcript

Keep the Tip · Aaron Mahnke's Cabinet of Curiosities

• 0:04
  Speaker 1: Welcomed Aaron Mankey's Cabinet of Curiosities, a production of I
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: Heart Radio and Grim and Mild. Our world is full
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: of the unexplainable, and if history is an open book,
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: all of these amazing tales are right there on display,
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: just waiting for us to explore. Welcome to the Cabinet
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: of Curiosities. When an artist begins painting, I often wonder
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: what inspired them. Whatever their motivation, profit fits into the
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: equation for many. After all, a professional painter's job is
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: to paint, just like a carpenter or a farmer, laboring
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: away on something that can sell. Art, it seems, can
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: sometimes be a means to a pay day. So when
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: Eduard Mane was commissioned by art collector Charles A. Frusy
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: to paint a bundle of asparagus, Mane had no questions
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: to ask. He was at the latter stages of life,
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: his celebrity making him highly sought after for such work,
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: and as for Charles, he was in the energetic stage
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: of art collecting. Charles, who was also an enthusiastic art
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: critic at the time, became enamored with the Impressionist style
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: of art at the tender age of thirty one, so
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: he commissioned a series of paintings from artistic geniuses across Europe,
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: all backed by the significant capital of his family business.
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: Along with the piece that he would commission from man A,
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: Charles also purchased another forty or so works of art
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: from legends like Pizarro, Renoir, Degas and Monet. His business
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: dealings must have been favorable too, because Renois even saw
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: fit to include Charles wearing a stylish top hat in
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: his work Luncheon of the Boating Party. At the time
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: of the commission, man A had already become something of
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: a mainstay on the artistic scene. Music in the Tuileries
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: had propelled him and his artistic vision, and a slew
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: of similarly stylistic masterpieces followed over the next few decades. However,
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: he was in an unfortunate stage of declining health. In fact,
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: by this point, Mana was already partially paralyzed in the legs,
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: but that didn't stop him from painting, even in the
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: case of this commission from Charles, A Bunch of Asparagus. Now,
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: the painting itself is pretty self explanatory. It features a
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: bundle of asparagus, tied twice across the middle, as if
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: recently purchased. Sitting on a top of bed of lettuce,
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: which itself sits atop a white marble countertop. There isn't
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: a lot to it, but as with all of Mayonnai's work,
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: there is motion to the painting, well as much motion
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: as a bundle of asparagus can spare. At least, the
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: agreed upon payment was a sturdy eight hundred francs roughly
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: seventeen hundred dollars today. Charles, being no stranger to large
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: sums of money, decided to do man A one better
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: and pay him a thousand francs, presumably for a job
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: well done. A tip is rather generous, after all. Man
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: A didn't take it that way, though, or perhaps he
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: was just feeling saucy. Seeing that he had been overpaid.
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: Man A took out his oil paints again, prepared a canvas,
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: and set to work. His muse was asparagus, only this
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: time man A didn't paint a bunch. He left out
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: the lettuce bed as well, though he did keep in
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: the marble countertop, on top of which sat one lonely
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: asparagus teetering on the edge upon completing the painting, man
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: A sent the work to Charles with a note, there
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: was one sprig missing from your bundle, it read. Apparently
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: for his own amusement or not, man A had seen
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: the extra franks as a miscount on how many asparagus
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: were in the bundle, and not as a tip as
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: if Charles had overpaid for asparagus at the grocery store,
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: and not in commissioning for a painting. But whatever the case,
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: man A successfully immortalized the artistic qualities of the asparagus,
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: not once, but twice. A lot more vegetables than most
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: people are willing to put up with, for sure, but
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: certainly good for us after all, art, as they say,
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: feeds the soul. People with too much money often spend
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: it on the most absurd things like mega yachts, private islands,
• 4:30
  Speaker 1: and space companies. Rarely is the person who donates his
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: wealth for the common good, who helps lift their fellow
• 4:37
  Speaker 1: humans out of poverty and into a life of relative comfort. Sadly,
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: John Fuller was also not that person. Fuller, also known
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: as Mad Jack, was born in England in seventeen fifty
• 4:49
  Speaker 1: seven to Francis and the Reverend Henry Fuller. His father
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: passed away when John was only four, though, and several
• 4:55
  Speaker 1: years later he went off to Eton College to pursue
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: his education. And then and in seventeen seventy seven, his
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: life changed forever. His uncle Rose Fuller, a wealthy plantation
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: owner and member of Parliament, died and left him a gift.
• 5:10
  Speaker 1: His uncle's estates in Sussex, as well as his plantations
• 5:13
  Speaker 1: in Jamaica, now belonged to his twenty year old nephew,
• 5:17
  Speaker 1: whose newfound wealth allowed him to pursue any whim or
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: dream he could come up with. It also gave him
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: a bottomless well of money to spend on booze, which
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: he did often. Over the years, Mad Jack, as he
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: would come to be known, grew in both size and reputation,
• 5:34
  Speaker 1: earning him another unflattering nickname, the Hippopotamus. And while other
• 5:38
  Speaker 1: men of his status might have restricted their heavy drinking
• 5:41
  Speaker 1: two evening hours or only with friends, Jack was inebriated
• 5:46
  Speaker 1: often and at inappropriate times. For example, he was once
• 5:50
  Speaker 1: forced out of Parliament after causing a drunken disruption during
• 5:53
  Speaker 1: an important hearing. Once he'd finally left the chamber, the
• 5:57
  Speaker 1: speaker resumed the session. Jack then re appeared to continue
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: his tirade and was escorted out by the Sergeant at Arms.
• 6:05
  Speaker 1: But drinking wasn't Jack's only obsession. Being a plantation owner,
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: he believed in slavery and the benefits of owning other
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: human beings. It wasn't uncommon for him to use his
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: position as a member of Parliament to advocate for slavery
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: as well, and with the money he earned from such
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: evil means, he contributed to things like the arts and
• 6:24
  Speaker 1: sciences in England. The painter J. M. W. Turner produced
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: several commissions for him, and Fuller often donated his money
• 6:32
  Speaker 1: to worthwhile causes, like helping the Royal Institution of Great
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: Britain when it was facing money problems. His contributions helped
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: establish the role of Fullerian professor across a variety of disciplines.
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: The first Fullerian professor of chemistry, for example, was one
• 6:49
  Speaker 1: Michael Faraday, who went on to make numerous discoveries in
• 6:52
  Speaker 1: electromagnetism and electro chemistry. When Jack wasn't giving money to
• 6:57
  Speaker 1: artists and institutions, though he was giving it to architects
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: and mason's. His property in the village of Brightling became
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: something of a museum for odd little buildings. They were
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: called follies, useless but enticing structures built on a wealthy
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: landowner's property, also called eye catchers. These follies gained popularity
• 7:17
  Speaker 1: during the eighteenth and early nineteen centuries, especially in England,
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: and were often modeled in the Romantic style. A folly
• 7:25
  Speaker 1: might resemble the ruins of an ancient Greek temple or
• 7:28
  Speaker 1: a tower as found on a medieval castle. They could
• 7:31
  Speaker 1: be covered in vines or artificially aged to look much
• 7:35
  Speaker 1: older than they were, and of course Jack had several
• 7:38
  Speaker 1: of these follies installed on his land. The first was
• 7:42
  Speaker 1: the Tower, a hollow cylinder that looked like the last
• 7:45
  Speaker 1: remaining part of a fairytale castle. Allegedly, he had it
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: erected so that he could look out on another castle
• 7:51
  Speaker 1: that he had purchased several miles away. Then there was
• 7:55
  Speaker 1: the sugar Loaf, the tall cone like spire that had
• 7:58
  Speaker 1: been built to settle a bet Fuller drunk at the time.
• 8:02
  Speaker 1: Of course, had wagered with the Vicar of Darlington that
• 8:05
  Speaker 1: he could see the spire of Darlington Church from his home. Well,
• 8:09
  Speaker 1: the church was two and a half miles away and
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: not clearly visible, so the sugar loaf was built to
• 8:15
  Speaker 1: resemble the tall, pointed roof of the church. It was
• 8:18
  Speaker 1: completed in a single night. In the following day, Jack
• 8:21
  Speaker 1: had the vicar over for dinner. He brought him to
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: the window and showed him the view there as clear
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: as day. The vicar saw the spire in all its glory,
• 8:31
  Speaker 1: and Jack won his bet. Oh and then there was
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: the Needle, which was a massive obelisk and thought to
• 8:37
  Speaker 1: have been erected in honor of Napoleon's defeat at Waterloo.
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: And the temple with its Greek columns and domed top,
• 8:43
  Speaker 1: which held numerous parties and became kind of a hangout
• 8:47
  Speaker 1: spot for Fuller and his friends. He also built an observatory,
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: one of two purpose built constructions outfitted with a camera
• 8:55
  Speaker 1: obscura and a telescope. And finally, and strangest of all
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: was Mad Jack's pyramid. It was twenty five ft tall
• 9:03
  Speaker 1: with a doorway at its entrance. This pyramid, a bizarre
• 9:07
  Speaker 1: sites on a private English property, served one very specific function.
• 9:12
  Speaker 1: It would hold Mad Jack Fuller's body following his death.
• 9:16
  Speaker 1: Within the triangular mausoleum, Jack was allegedly seated upright at
• 9:21
  Speaker 1: a table with his top hat on. A roast and
• 9:24
  Speaker 1: a bottle of ports were placed in front of him,
• 9:26
  Speaker 1: and pieces of broken glass were scattered all over the
• 9:30
  Speaker 1: floor to keep the devil from taking his soul. In reality,
• 9:35
  Speaker 1: Jack wasn't placed at the table. He was buried beneath
• 9:38
  Speaker 1: the pyramid instead, but as property and all the follies
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: are still around today. In fact, they become a popular
• 9:44
  Speaker 1: destination for visitors to Brightling and serve as a reminder
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: of what the ultra wealthy truly value in life to
• 9:52
  Speaker 1: somehow feel important. I hope you've enjoyed today's guided tour
• 9:59
  Speaker 1: of the Cabinet of Curiosities. Subscribe for free on Apple Podcasts,
• 10:04
  Speaker 1: or learn more about the show by visiting Curiosities podcast
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: dot com. The show was created by me Aaron Mankey
• 10:11
  Speaker 1: in partnership with how Stuff Works. I make another award
• 10:15
  Speaker 1: winning show called Lore, which is a podcast, book series,
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: and television show, and you can learn all about it
• 10:21
  Speaker 1: over at the World of Lore dot com. And until
• 10:25
  Speaker 1: next time, stay curious. Ye