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Short Stuff: The Mona Lisa · Stuff You Should Know

• 0:04
  Speaker 1: Hey, and welcome to the short stuff. I'm Josh, there's Chuck,
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: there's j j over there. Let's get to it and
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: talk about maybe the most famous painting in all the world. Perhaps,
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: Um sag Clown Hobo by John Wayne Gazy. Right, have
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: you seen the Mona Lisa I have same here. I'm
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: sure your first impression, like many people, it was huh
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: sure as small, it's it's impossible to not have. You
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: can go into it saying I'm not going to think
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: that I've been prepped. I'm not going to let myself
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: think that, and you will think that. Yeah, it's two
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: ft six inches by one nine inches. It's a small
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: little painting, it is, and they have it behind some
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: seriously protective casing. You can't get too terribly close to it,
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: and you can get kind of close, but not you know,
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: you can't just walk up right on it. And um,
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: I think we talked a lot about the why they
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: have it under that casing in our How the Louver
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: Works episode, if I remember correctly, Yeah, I think we
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: covered that. Uh, this is a little more about the
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: lady herself. Um, they think for sure that Mona Lisa
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: was a person, a real person, and there's been a
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: lot of debate over the years, but the current thinking is,
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: what's her name? Oh boy, is Lisa Gerardini del gian
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: Condo um also known as Lagio Conda very nice because
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: she's a lady and she was a wealthy woman married
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: to a wealthy silk merchant. And the thinking is that
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: he had this commissioned to celebrate the birth of their
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: impending birth of a child. Yeah, and it's bizarre to
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: think that we don't we don't know much about the
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: Mona Lisa. It's not that old. I mean, um, da
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: Vinci started it, and I think fifteen three is when
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: he started the painting exactly, which is what I was
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: going to say eventually. Um, So it's not it's not
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: so ridiculously old that that it's just completely lost to history.
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: And yet it is because the the Giocondo family never
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: took possession of it. And the reason that they think
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: that they're almost certain that that is who it is,
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: that it's led Giaconda in that painting, um, is that
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: there there was a book written about it in the
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: time that Leonardo da Vinci's sons were still alive and
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: so still around. To refute this, if it was incorrect
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: that it was her, that she was the one who
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: was seated there. And then years and years later somebody
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: found a margin note somewhere in some book or some
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: notebook that said as much that Lisa Giardini Guerardini sorry
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: um was the Mona Lisa, and that she was going
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: to be sitting for this work that Da Vinci was
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: working on. Right, and they speculate about the impending pregnancy
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: because she has some kind of loose clothing on, and
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: that little smile uh is interpreted as, Oh, guess what's coming.
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: I'm about to get birth. I can't wait. So we
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: should probably talk a little bit about the um the
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: artistry of the Mona Lisa. I'm gonna go ahead and
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: throw it out there. Yeah. Oh really, are you crazy?
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: You don't like it? It's not that I don't like it.
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: I'm just I'm not a big fan of portraiture period. Uh.
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: Not a lot of portraits knocked me out like others. Um.
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: Other paintings do. UM. I can appreciate them, for sure,
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: but I've never looked at a portrait and been like, man,
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: I want that in my house so bad. Not a
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: big Rembrand fan, huh. So, um, I think one of
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: the reasons I appreciated Chuck is because I recently saw
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: Decoding Da Vinci Cova, a little Nova documentary Tom Hanks movie. Yeah,
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: he's got a mullet in and running around all over
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: the place. Um No, this was this was even more
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: legitimate than that. But they really go into, you know,
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: the techniques that he used in this painting, especially this
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: Fu Mouto method he's very well known for, which uses
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: shading and and um some other stuff. You're gonna have
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: to watch the nov episode for it to be explained.
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: But but the upshot of it is there's no lines
• 4:17
  Speaker 1: in the Mona Lisa. There's no hard lines, there's no
• 4:20
  Speaker 1: he didn't paint a line, he suggested lines. Every line
• 4:24
  Speaker 1: in that painting doesn't actually exist. It's all an illusion
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: created by the painting techniques that he was using on
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: the Mona Lisa. And they really go to town explaining this,
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: and it really makes it that much easier to appreciate. Yeah.
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: Another thing that's mentioned here in the House of Works
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: article is the fact, and this kind of stood out
• 4:43
  Speaker 1: to me, is mostly when you see portraits, especially especially
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: oh my lord, uh from that era, is you have
• 4:51
  Speaker 1: someone in a room maybe and not necessarily a landscape
• 4:55
  Speaker 1: as well, or landscapes, and there were portraits and never
• 4:59
  Speaker 1: between shell meet, but he blended those two things together. Uh.
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: And there's a landscape behind the Mona Lisa and an
• 5:05
  Speaker 1: aerial perspective, and she's very much in a big open
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: space with this these mountains and winding paths behind her.
• 5:13
  Speaker 1: And your eye doesn't always go to that because you're
• 5:15
  Speaker 1: looking at that face and that smile, but that dreamy
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: landscape is certainly back there. Yeah, And I think what
• 5:22
  Speaker 1: what they're what they're remarking about is that is supposedly
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: an imaginary landscape and that people didn't paint imaginary ones.
• 5:29
  Speaker 1: And there're people have tried to prove that it actually
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: is an imaginary most recently a pair of Italian researchers
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: Olivia and Neshi and Rosetta Borkia. I don't do it
• 5:40
  Speaker 1: nearly as well as you, but they said, no, it's
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: this place in Montefeltro, in the east of Italy, east
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: of Florence on the Adriatic coast, and they're like, this
• 5:49
  Speaker 1: mountain is this one? This is this mountain? They said,
• 5:52
  Speaker 1: this bridge used to be there, but it's since been destroyed.
• 5:54
  Speaker 1: This lake is no longer here, is filled in my
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: mud sides. But they're pretty sure they pinpointed it. But
• 5:59
  Speaker 1: that doesn't necessarily mean they're correct. It's it's still speculative,
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: but they have they seem to have a pretty good
• 6:04
  Speaker 1: case to back it up. But a lot of the
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: position is that Legio Conda posed in front of that. No, no,
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: just that he he um he that's why he painted,
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: you know. Yeah, so so yeah. I don't think that
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: they were saying like he made her sit there for
• 6:19
  Speaker 1: four years or that she was ever even there, but
• 6:22
  Speaker 1: that it wasn't. Their point is that it's not a
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: made up landscape. Well no, I mean, I'm sure he
• 6:27
  Speaker 1: took a photograph of her right and then just worked
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: from that, knowing da Vinci, he probably did. I will
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: say that the Mona Lisa's eyes following you, the Mona
• 6:37
  Speaker 1: Lisa effect, which he did not invent, but it is
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: referred to that way anyway. And I know you're pretty um,
• 6:43
  Speaker 1: pretty into this idea that eyes can follow you, that
• 6:46
  Speaker 1: works on a laptop even it does, and and that's
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: a whole other short stuff if you ask me. But this, um,
• 6:54
  Speaker 1: this this Mona Lisa effect. That being called that the
• 6:58
  Speaker 1: eyes following you around the room. The meaning that's actually
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: a misnomer because they've proven that the Mona Lisa does
• 7:05
  Speaker 1: not actually demonstrate the Mona Lisa effect. It did to me, man,
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: does it? I mean, I don't know. Maybe it was
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: the fact that I got super drunk at lunch, but
• 7:16
  Speaker 1: I was sitting at my desk and I was I
• 7:19
  Speaker 1: was going, you know, heavy, back and forth to the
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: left and right, and they seemed to be following me.
• 7:24
  Speaker 1: Or maybe it was suggested so I saw it that way.
• 7:27
  Speaker 1: I don't know. I wonder that, man, I wonder if
• 7:29
  Speaker 1: that is because when I looked and saw that she
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: doesn't have that effect, I was like, oh, yeah, I
• 7:35
  Speaker 1: totally see it. They some researchers measured where people pointed
• 7:39
  Speaker 1: on the screen or pointed on themselves where she was looking,
• 7:42
  Speaker 1: and most people said she was looking past them to
• 7:45
  Speaker 1: their right about a thirty degree angle. H Well, it
• 7:50
  Speaker 1: may have been power suggestion, yeah, for both of us.
• 7:53
  Speaker 1: Who knows. All right, Well, let's take a break here
• 7:55
  Speaker 1: and then we'll here you will hear we will say
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: a little bit about when and why the Mona Lisa
• 8:02
  Speaker 1: became soups famous. Alright, Chuck, I thought that break would
• 8:31
  Speaker 1: never come, right. So, um, it's funny to think as
• 8:36
  Speaker 1: famous as the Mona Lisa is, but she was fairly
• 8:38
  Speaker 1: neglected by the world until the mid nineteenth century. And
• 8:43
  Speaker 1: even then, just like a small little group of French
• 8:47
  Speaker 1: art critics finally discovered you know this da Vinci painting,
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: and we're like, this is a masterpiece. This is an
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: amazing work of Renaissance art. We haven't noticed all these
• 8:58
  Speaker 1: few hundred years, but it's amazing. They didn't really tell
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: the rest of the world, and people like the Mona
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  Speaker 1: Lisa was fine, but it wasn't until she was stolen
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: off of the wall in the Louver in nineteen eleven
• 9:09
  Speaker 1: that the world really sat up and took notice. It's
• 9:12
  Speaker 1: very much like that Cinderella song, you don't know what
• 9:15
  Speaker 1: you got until it's gone. That happened with the Mona
• 9:19
  Speaker 1: Lisa too. I think they wrote that about the Mona Lisa, right, probably, Yeah,
• 9:23
  Speaker 1: August twenty one, nineteen eleven. There were three handymen that
• 9:28
  Speaker 1: just kind of went out the side door with the
• 9:31
  Speaker 1: Mona Lisa. It took twenty six and this was kind
• 9:34
  Speaker 1: of evidence that she wasn't that big of a deal.
• 9:37
  Speaker 1: Yet it took a whole twenty six hours before anyone
• 9:40
  Speaker 1: even noticed she was gone. And um whereas today you know,
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: there would be alarm bells like second it was removed,
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: but it was put in the papers and all of
• 9:52
  Speaker 1: a sudden it kind of ran away in the press.
• 9:54
  Speaker 1: The loop shut down for a week and everyone from
• 9:58
  Speaker 1: Pablo Picasso to JP Morgan were named as potential suspects. Yeah,
• 10:02
  Speaker 1: they thought they thought JP Morgan was financing people to
• 10:05
  Speaker 1: steal them for steal like artworks for him. Amazing. Yeah,
• 10:09
  Speaker 1: and actually it's funny that raised this other thing. Chuck
• 10:12
  Speaker 1: real quick, there's um there are accusations against wealthy Chinese people,
• 10:17
  Speaker 1: um like who are funding art heists to repatriate Chinese art.
• 10:24
  Speaker 1: Interesting if there's like a whole string of art heists
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: around the world that are just um ancient Chinese works
• 10:31
  Speaker 1: of art and they think that some people in China
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: are financing it. It's It was a g Q article
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: called the Great Chinese Art Heist. Wow. Well, I certainly
• 10:40
  Speaker 1: believe in repatriation to a certain degree, but I don't
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: know if you should go to that length, right, Uh So, anyway,
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: the newspapers get it out, Lou shuts down. People were
• 10:50
  Speaker 1: coming to the museum to see what was known as
• 10:52
  Speaker 1: the Mark of Shame, that empty, you know, non cigarette
• 10:56
  Speaker 1: stained square on the wall, and every one went and went,
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: is that how big it is? That little non dusty square. Uh.
• 11:06
  Speaker 1: And then it took a full twenty eight months for
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: this thing to finally reappear with an attempted re sale
• 11:12
  Speaker 1: from Vincenzo Perugia, and the owner of the art gallery
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: that was being offered this painting said, yeah, this is
• 11:21
  Speaker 1: the mona Lisa. You know what, I'm gonna make sure
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: you get a good reward for this. Just stick around
• 11:26
  Speaker 1: and stay right there. I'm gonna go in the other
• 11:28
  Speaker 1: room and make a quick phone call to the reward
• 11:31
  Speaker 1: center right and make sure you get your rewards and
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: just reward right there, reward. And then Homer Simpson just
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: stood in place and waited for the Italian uhl at
• 11:42
  Speaker 1: the com Yeah and he uh he got busted and
• 11:46
  Speaker 1: he got eight months in prison for this. It was
• 11:48
  Speaker 1: a pretty big art heist. But he was in Florence
• 11:51
  Speaker 1: trying to sell it. So he's stolen from the Louver
• 11:54
  Speaker 1: in Paris and His defense was, Napoleon stole this from
• 11:57
  Speaker 1: us uh, and I was repaid treating it myself. And
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: I think he actually kind of got you know, eight
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: months isn't exactly a slap on the wrist, but it's
• 12:06
  Speaker 1: also not a um, a ridiculous sentence, either for for
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: what he got so or for what he did so. Um.
• 12:13
  Speaker 1: I think that actually helped that defense worked. Do you
• 12:15
  Speaker 1: know if he read it out his two buddies, I
• 12:18
  Speaker 1: don't know, And I don't know if it would have
• 12:20
  Speaker 1: mattered because he was the one that lived with it
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: in like the false bottom of his steamer trunk in
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: his apartment for two years before he he tried to
• 12:29
  Speaker 1: sell it, so I don't know if it would have
• 12:32
  Speaker 1: helped at all. Man, I wish I had a false
• 12:34
  Speaker 1: bottom steamer trunk. Those are would be pretty handy. Oh oh,
• 12:40
  Speaker 1: I thought you meant like a bottom. No no, no,
• 12:42
  Speaker 1: it just a false bottom trunk sings like false bottom girls.
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: They make the rock and world go around kind of
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: false bottom. Stop it. Can we say that it's not
• 12:51
  Speaker 1: the seventies any longer? I think we're okay, okay, do
• 12:54
  Speaker 1: you got anything else? Nothing? Well? Then everybody short stuff
• 12:58
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