Latest / 1-800-1800 / 1-800-1832: The Great Wave

Transcript

1-800-1832: The Great Wave · 1-800-1800

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_02: Ring, ring.
• 0:01
  SPEAKER_02: Hello.
• 0:02
  SPEAKER_02: Is this 1832?
• 0:03
  SPEAKER_03: Correctamundo.
• 0:05
  SPEAKER_02: Correctamundo.
• 0:07
  SPEAKER_03: This is she, 1832, otherwise known as Mabel Taylor.
• 0:11
  SPEAKER_03: And this is Madeline Porcella.
• 0:13
  SPEAKER_03: All right, focus.
• 0:14
  SPEAKER_02: Is texting.
• 0:15
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, I know.
• 0:16
  SPEAKER_02: I'm like, the way your eyes just drifted beyond the screen.
• 0:19
  SPEAKER_03: I'm sorry.
• 0:21
  SPEAKER_03: Yes, I'm Mabel.
• 0:22
  SPEAKER_03: That is Madeline.
• 0:24
  SPEAKER_03: And we are the founders of Mandy Lion Press.
• 0:26
  SPEAKER_03: And this is 1-800-1800.
• 0:27
  SPEAKER_03: Cue music.
• 0:33
  SPEAKER_00: Hello?
• 0:34
  SPEAKER_00: You've reached 1-800-1800 1-800-1800 I have a burning question 1-800-1800
• 0:51
  SPEAKER_00: I have a burning question.
• 0:53
  SPEAKER_03: And welcome back after you heard the song.
• 0:55
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah,
• 0:59
  so every month we release this podcast and each episode we just
• 1:04
  call up a random
• 1:05
  SPEAKER_03: year and we chat about it.
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_03: We gossip about it.
• 1:07
  SPEAKER_03: We ask it, what is up, girl?
• 1:09
  SPEAKER_03: And sometimes like 1832, I don't even know her.
• 1:13
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, Madeline has no idea what I'm going to say.
• 1:14
  SPEAKER_03: This year challenged me.
• 1:17
  SPEAKER_03: I'm going to be real with you.
• 1:18
  SPEAKER_03: I feel like this is in your zone.
• 1:22
  But I decided to challenge myself by talking about something I
• 1:25
  know nothing about.
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, no.
• 1:29
  SPEAKER_03: And it's going to get weird.
• 1:30
  it goes well like 50 of the time when we do that and i'm going
• 1:34
  to ask you i
• 1:35
  actually think that i'm going to end up in a place that you
• 1:38
  know a lot about so i'm
• 1:38
  going to lean on you but of course i gave you zero information
• 1:42
  about that i forgot
• 1:42
  to tell you yeah but anyway i would have brushed up on whatever
• 1:47
  it is but this is
• 1:48
  SPEAKER_03: gonna be raw uncut 1-800-1800
• 1:51
  this is why people listen to this for the raw unfiltered
• 1:55
  unfactual history my dad i
• 1:58
  was talking to him about our podcast and he was like you know i
• 2:01
  respect that you
• 2:02
  completely lie and say false things all the time i was like
• 2:05
  that is not intended
• 2:06
  well jake i just had lunch with jake and he was like the and i
• 2:10
  was like the podcast
• 2:11
  back and he was like oh yeah i haven't been listening to you
• 2:13
  guys do more research
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_02: now what
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_02: I was like, we've always done a lot of research.
• 2:18
  SPEAKER_02: It's just that we don't stick to talking about that.
• 2:22
  SPEAKER_03: What offended my dad,
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_03: maybe I should just make a correction,
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_03: is that there was a claim made on a recent episode.
• 2:31
  SPEAKER_02: Did I make it?
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_02: Is that why you're saying it in the passive?
• 2:34
  SPEAKER_03: Yes.
• 2:35
  SPEAKER_03: You said that in 1803, I think that the first steam engine train...
• 2:43
  i definitely didn't make that up i read that somewhere well
• 2:45
  it's not true and he
• 2:47
  fact-checked you and sent me links to um the real year which
• 2:51
  was much later okay i
• 2:53
  mean i i'm curious to know i just i definitely like wasn't
• 2:57
  guessing that in 1803
• 2:58
  SPEAKER_03: that happened here let's see what he said about trains
• 3:04
  Madeline says that the first public railway opened in 1803,
• 3:07
  but it wasn't until 1825.
• 3:09
  I was kind of suspicious of that detail because I think of
• 3:12
  railways as an 1820s
• 3:13
  SPEAKER_03: kind of middle March thing,
• 3:14
  SPEAKER_03: not Jeffersonian.
• 3:17
  SPEAKER_03: And then he says he sent a correction to your sub stack.
• 3:20
  SPEAKER_02: British narrow gauge railways first opened in 1803.
• 3:26
  SPEAKER_02: I'm fucking looking at the Wikipedia page right now, David.
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_03: Okay, we have to leave this.
• 3:34
  SPEAKER_03: I'm just a mere middleman.
• 3:36
  SPEAKER_03: I didn't doubt you.
• 3:37
  SPEAKER_02: The Surrey Iron Railway of 1803.
• 3:39
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, it was horse-drawn.
• 3:44
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, I would call that a draw.
• 3:45
  SPEAKER_02: A horse-drawn train.
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_02: It's recognized as the first public railway, though.
• 3:51
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, cool.
• 3:52
  SPEAKER_02: I don't think I said steam power, did I?
• 3:54
  SPEAKER_02: I don't know.
• 3:55
  SPEAKER_02: I think you said just public railway.
• 3:57
  SPEAKER_02: And it is that.
• 3:58
  SPEAKER_02: I get what he was saying that I'm wrong about.
• 4:00
  I think because I said it in the same breath as saying the
• 4:06
  first steamboat.
• 4:07
  SPEAKER_03: Hmm.
• 4:09
  He made an assumption,
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  but...
• 4:10
  And you know what they say when you assume.
• 4:15
  SPEAKER_03: Okay, Madeline, let's challenge the haters.
• 4:19
  SPEAKER_03: What did you learn this week?
• 4:21
  Okay,
• 4:21
  well,
• 4:21
  just this very day,
• 4:23
  I went to the Hancock Shaker Village in...
• 4:27
  Hancock?
• 4:28
  SPEAKER_02: Pittsfield, Massachusetts?
• 4:29
  SPEAKER_02: I don't actually know where it is.
• 4:31
  SPEAKER_02: It's in the Berkshires.
• 4:33
  SPEAKER_03: That's so fun.
• 4:34
  SPEAKER_02: And they went with my mom and Jake and Emily.
• 4:39
  SPEAKER_03: I feel like we don't give your mom proper shout out on the podcast.
• 4:41
  SPEAKER_03: She's our biggest listener.
• 4:43
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 4:44
  SPEAKER_02: Well, she was there and she freaking killed it.
• 4:46
  SPEAKER_02: It was a little icy and it wasn't paved.
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_03: Oh my God.
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_03: She's awesome.
• 4:51
  SPEAKER_02: My mom has a foot injury, everyone.
• 4:55
  And there they have this,
• 4:58
  they have like,
• 4:59
  actually,
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  I think the only like round stone barn ever.
• 5:04
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 5:07
  don't look it up David and it's like ingenious because it
• 5:13
  basically takes like all
• 5:14
  of these things that I've seen before in like renaissance draw
• 5:17
  like Leonardo da
• 5:18
  Vinci's these would draw these like fantastical like helix
• 5:21
  staircases and things
• 5:22
  and it basically like takes those same principles but the barn
• 5:26
  is designed so it's
• 5:26
  round so wagons never have to back out of it which you don't
• 5:31
  think about but would
• 5:32
  SPEAKER_02: be hard
• 5:33
  SPEAKER_03: Wow.
• 5:33
  SPEAKER_03: Oh, because you can always do a lap and get around.
• 5:36
  SPEAKER_02: You can do a lap.
• 5:36
  SPEAKER_02: And then there's two levels.
• 5:38
  SPEAKER_02: So one level is just for wagons and it has a ramp that goes up.
• 5:44
  SPEAKER_02: It's the second level.
• 5:45
  SPEAKER_02: And then the bottom level is just for the cows.
• 5:47
  SPEAKER_02: And then the whole center of the barn is hay.
• 5:51
  And then there are these like pegs that they would move aside
• 5:53
  to like put the cows
• 5:54
  SPEAKER_02: heads and Jake showed me this.
• 5:56
  SPEAKER_02: So cool.
• 5:56
  And then they would have keep all the manure like it would fall
• 6:00
  underneath,
• 6:02
  SPEAKER_02: which would keep the whole thing warm all winter.
• 6:05
  SPEAKER_03: I love dung for that.
• 6:06
  SPEAKER_02: And I met a baby cat.
• 6:08
  SPEAKER_02: Well, two baby cows.
• 6:09
  SPEAKER_02: Only one of them wanted to kiss me.
• 6:13
  SPEAKER_03: And that's so cute.
• 6:15
  SPEAKER_03: Well, the round barn is reminding me of that round tower in Copenhagen.
• 6:20
  SPEAKER_03: Have you been in that?
• 6:21
  SPEAKER_01: No.
• 6:23
  I think you have because I remember sending you a picture and
• 6:25
  you said you had been there.
• 6:26
  SPEAKER_03: But it's crazy because it's an equestrian staircase.
• 6:28
  SPEAKER_03: But it's, again, round.
• 6:30
  SPEAKER_03: It just goes up and up and up.
• 6:31
  SPEAKER_03: It's like 10 stories tall.
• 6:33
  SPEAKER_02: This was like a big thing in the Renaissance, I think.
• 6:36
  SPEAKER_03: I don't know.
• 6:36
  SPEAKER_02: Why did they have to take a horse to the top of like...
• 6:40
  the vatican i don't know but push it off of course yeah of
• 6:44
  course um but that was
• 6:46
  like all of the kind of like big renaissance buildings have
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  these like two they're
• 6:51
  staircases that are basically double and like one is for horses
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  and one is for
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  SPEAKER_03: people horses deserve to walk upstairs too
• 6:58
  for why i mean i think it's probably really helpful if they can
• 7:02
  did you ever hear
• 7:02
  of someone doing that prank where they put a cow on the second
• 7:05
  floor no do you know
• 7:08
  about it no i started thinking about maria supreme cows is
• 7:13
  there a cow in that
• 7:14
  movie no but there's the bathtub scene oh yeah my biggest fear
• 7:18
  um i thought of you
• 7:20
  SPEAKER_02: you should stop taking baths at your house
• 7:22
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, I know.
• 7:23
  I,
• 7:23
  my mom and I both got home and we're like looking at this,
• 7:26
  like studying.
• 7:29
  There is like,
• 7:29
  there's water damage underneath one of the,
• 7:32
  I'm like,
• 7:32
  not kidding.
• 7:33
  SPEAKER_02: We were both looking at it being like, fuck.
• 7:35
  SPEAKER_03: As soon as I watched that scene, I thought about you.
• 7:38
  um but oh there's like a famous kind of like senior prank and I
• 7:45
  don't know I mean
• 7:46
  I've heard about it for a long time but I like don't know that
• 7:49
  it's ever actually
• 7:49
  happened because cows can walk upstairs but they can't walk
• 7:52
  downstairs so if you
• 7:54
  put yeah so if you put a cow on the second floor of your school
• 7:58
  they had to like
• 7:58
  SPEAKER_02: have a crane come and take it away
• 8:02
  SPEAKER_02: Remember when you said you were putting your dog away?
• 8:05
  SPEAKER_02: No, I said I was going to get her to stop barking.
• 8:07
  SPEAKER_02: The best way to get her to stop barking is to keep her close.
• 8:12
  Madeline's beautiful dog just walked on screen and I'm like,
• 8:15
  I thought she wasn't here.
• 8:16
  SPEAKER_02: No, she's here.
• 8:18
  SPEAKER_03: Okay, do you want to know what I learned this week?
• 8:20
  SPEAKER_02: Mm-hmm.
• 8:21
  SPEAKER_03: Okay, so as you know, I watched the 1984 film Amadeus.
• 8:26
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, right.
• 8:27
  SPEAKER_03: About Mozart.
• 8:28
  SPEAKER_02: To fulfill our goal of learning about music.
• 8:31
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 8:32
  SPEAKER_03: And honestly, it was really interesting.
• 8:34
  SPEAKER_03: I'm like, Mozart is a genius, which I didn't really know before.
• 8:39
  SPEAKER_03: But did you know,
• 8:40
  SPEAKER_03: in addition to having a God-given right to have musical talent,
• 8:44
  SPEAKER_03: that Mozart had...
• 8:45
  SPEAKER_02: Like he was a prodigy?
• 8:46
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 8:47
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 8:48
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, okay.
• 8:49
  SPEAKER_02: No, not only God given race.
• 8:51
  SPEAKER_03: No,
• 8:52
  SPEAKER_03: it is God given because according to the film also,
• 8:55
  SPEAKER_03: in addition to being a child prodigy,
• 8:57
  SPEAKER_03: very gifted at music,
• 8:58
  SPEAKER_03: he was also such a gifted composer.
• 9:01
  SPEAKER_03: Like he didn't edit.
• 9:02
  He just like basically took pen to paper and would write a
• 9:05
  beautiful opera.
• 9:06
  SPEAKER_02: Like it just kind of true though.
• 9:08
  SPEAKER_02: Or is that like,
• 9:09
  SPEAKER_03: I think that's like the lore,
• 9:10
  SPEAKER_03: but he also wrote like 800 pieces of music and he died at 35,
• 9:13
  SPEAKER_03: I think.
• 9:15
  SPEAKER_03: Isn't that crazy?
• 9:16
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, but they really didn't have other stuff to do.
• 9:18
  SPEAKER_02: We've talked about this before.
• 9:19
  SPEAKER_03: He did have other things to do because also something that may remain,
• 9:22
  I think is like somewhat accurate in the film is about kind of
• 9:25
  like patronage
• 9:26
  SPEAKER_03: systems and how,
• 9:28
  SPEAKER_03: you know,
• 9:28
  SPEAKER_03: you couldn't just be an artist with a great talent.
• 9:30
  SPEAKER_03: You needed to work for the man.
• 9:31
  So he was like working for the Austrian emperor and he was
• 9:35
  working for the Catholic church.
• 9:37
  SPEAKER_02: When you're a composer doing that,
• 9:40
  SPEAKER_02: are you like,
• 9:41
  SPEAKER_02: are they like,
• 9:42
  SPEAKER_02: it's my birthday,
• 9:42
  SPEAKER_02: write me a song?
• 9:43
  SPEAKER_02: Or are they like, like how, are you like giving a concert?
• 9:47
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 9:47
  like joseph the third who he worked for was you know had like
• 9:52
  an opera house and
• 9:53
  was like i want cutting edge opera to be produced here right or
• 9:57
  it would be like
• 9:58
  write me a concerto for my party i don't know i think it was
• 10:01
  kind of a little bit
• 10:02
  of everything but he also yeah there was like court composers
• 10:06
  there you know music
• 10:07
  was like such an important part of life i think we need to do a
• 10:09
  dedicated music
• 10:11
  SPEAKER_03: series
• 10:12
  SPEAKER_02: Like a mini series on the history of classical music.
• 10:15
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 10:16
  SPEAKER_02: Why would we do that?
• 10:19
  What I actually learned from watching Amadeus and then I looked
• 10:22
  further into it and
• 10:22
  it's not just a cinematic license is that Mozart had a really
• 10:28
  dirty mind and he
• 10:31
  SPEAKER_03: loved making poop jokes.
• 10:33
  SPEAKER_03: Did you know this?
• 10:35
  No,
• 10:35
  but it's kind of like,
• 10:36
  I feel like a lot of what is edited out of history is poop
• 10:40
  jokes.
• 10:41
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, I think that makes a lot of sense.
• 10:44
  SPEAKER_03: But basically, yeah, he loved scatological humor.
• 10:48
  SPEAKER_03: For example,
• 10:49
  SPEAKER_03: he wrote a canon called Lick Meek,
• 10:52
  SPEAKER_03: I'm Arsk,
• 10:53
  SPEAKER_03: which means lick me in the arse in German.
• 10:57
  SPEAKER_02: I wanted to guess.
• 10:57
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 10:59
  SPEAKER_03: And he also,
• 11:00
  SPEAKER_03: one of his letters quotes him writing to a cousin slash love interest,
• 11:04
  SPEAKER_03: a woman named Marianne,
• 11:06
  SPEAKER_03: including,
• 11:07
  SPEAKER_03: which includes lines,
• 11:08
  SPEAKER_03: quote,
• 11:09
  SPEAKER_03: I now wish you a good night.
• 11:10
  SPEAKER_03: Shit in your bed with all your might.
• 11:12
  SPEAKER_03: Stuff like that.
• 11:14
  SPEAKER_03: In the movie,
• 11:14
  the actor playing Amadeus is like constantly making fart jokes
• 11:17
  and like pulling his
• 11:18
  SPEAKER_03: pants down and stuff like that.
• 11:19
  SPEAKER_02: I just think people were nasty.
• 11:21
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, they were gross.
• 11:23
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, the world was grosser.
• 11:26
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 11:27
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, I think a lot of people still make poo-poo pee-pee jokes.
• 11:30
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, I do.
• 11:31
  SPEAKER_03: You don't like it, but I do.
• 11:32
  SPEAKER_02: I really don't like it.
• 11:34
  SPEAKER_03: You're a little bit Puritan in that way.
• 11:36
  SPEAKER_02: It's just yucky.
• 11:38
  SPEAKER_02: I hear you, babe.
• 11:40
  SPEAKER_03: All right.
• 11:41
  SPEAKER_03: You ready for 1832?
• 11:43
  take me there okay i am going to start as is traditional on
• 11:48
  this podcast with
• 11:49
  births because it's super interesting okay so basically i have
• 11:54
  like four types of
• 11:55
  births i want to talk about okay first premature cesarean
• 12:03
  divine um no first i have
• 12:06
  SPEAKER_03: artistic births guess who's born
• 12:10
  SPEAKER_03: I'll just tell you.
• 12:11
  SPEAKER_03: Oh, you want me to guess?
• 12:13
  SPEAKER_03: Okay.
• 12:13
  SPEAKER_03: Manet was born and Gustave Doré.
• 12:16
  So I sort of thought about that as like 1832 is a year where
• 12:20
  like artistic
• 12:23
  SPEAKER_03: thinkers,
• 12:24
  SPEAKER_03: innovators were born.
• 12:25
  So that means that he was like,
• 12:27
  he was like 30 when he started really taking off.
• 12:31
  SPEAKER_03: Manet.
• 12:31
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, I think so.
• 12:32
  I also saw this great exhibition actually that I forgot to tell
• 12:35
  you about.
• 12:36
  SPEAKER_02: About 30 year olds.
• 12:38
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 12:39
  At the Legion of Honor in San Francisco was called Manet and
• 12:43
  Morisot and it was
• 12:44
  SPEAKER_03: about their friendship and it was really cute actually.
• 12:47
  SPEAKER_03: Um, and I actually did notice it's really funny.
• 12:51
  SPEAKER_03: 1832 kept coming up.
• 12:52
  SPEAKER_03: Like I had chosen 1832 as my year.
• 12:54
  SPEAKER_03: And then I saw this Manet exhibition.
• 12:56
  SPEAKER_03: And then as I'm about to tell you,
• 12:58
  SPEAKER_03: Louisa May Alcott was also born in 1832 along with Lewis Carroll.
• 13:03
  And I was talking about Louisa May Alcott with my family,
• 13:06
  my dad and my grandma.
• 13:07
  SPEAKER_01: Um,
• 13:08
  SPEAKER_03: So that was kind of,
• 13:09
  SPEAKER_03: and that was like,
• 13:09
  SPEAKER_03: I hadn't thought about the 1832 connection,
• 13:11
  SPEAKER_03: even though I already knew she was born that year.
• 13:13
  SPEAKER_03: So that was interesting.
• 13:14
  And then another freaky type of 1832 birth is Metropolitan
• 13:20
  Museum of Art History,
• 13:21
  SPEAKER_00: which is,
• 13:22
  SPEAKER_03: of course,
• 13:22
  SPEAKER_03: relevant to me.
• 13:24
  SPEAKER_03: Joseph Hodges Choate, who was one of the founders of the Met, was born.
• 13:28
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 13:29
  SPEAKER_03: And then also Luigi Pama di Cesnola,
• 13:32
  SPEAKER_03: who was the first director of the Met,
• 13:34
  SPEAKER_03: was also born that year.
• 13:35
  SPEAKER_02: The first director of the Met was Italian.
• 13:39
  SPEAKER_03: He's a really interesting guy.
• 13:40
  SPEAKER_03: We actually should do a special episode about him.
• 13:42
  SPEAKER_03: He's like, he's kind of... That surprises me.
• 13:45
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 13:45
  SPEAKER_03: Well, no, but they were obsessed with Europe.
• 13:47
  SPEAKER_03: Like they wanted to be...
• 13:49
  you know equal on par with europe the other thing about first
• 13:53
  director is that the
• 13:54
  mets like leadership structure changed many times so it's like
• 13:57
  they had a president
• 13:58
  who wasn't him first but he was the first director person first
• 14:01
  person called
• 14:02
  director and he was like one of these kind of like soldiers for
• 14:05
  hire who had been
• 14:06
  like trained in italy but then ended up being like a civil war
• 14:10
  hero for like a
• 14:11
  SPEAKER_02: literal soldier for hire yeah
• 14:14
  i thought you meant like a hired gun no he worked for different
• 14:19
  armies yeah okay he
• 14:21
  was a mercenary and he was also like a self-taught
• 14:24
  archaeologist and is known like
• 14:27
  a lot of the cypriotic a lot of things from cyprus um that are
• 14:31
  still in the mets
• 14:32
  collection were collected by chestnola he just like went to
• 14:34
  cyprus and like dug up
• 14:35
  SPEAKER_03: everything and put it on a boat illegally
• 14:38
  um so i thought that was very interesting and then finally i
• 14:41
  have something really
• 14:42
  crazy to tell you about okay did you know that someone born in
• 14:47
  1832 is still alive
• 14:51
  SPEAKER_03: No, that's so scary.
• 14:52
  SPEAKER_02: What are you talking about?
• 14:53
  SPEAKER_01: He's a tortoise.
• 14:57
  SPEAKER_03: And his name is Jonathan.
• 14:59
  SPEAKER_03: His name is Jonathan.
• 15:02
  SPEAKER_03: He's a giant tortoise.
• 15:03
  SPEAKER_03: He lives in St.
• 15:05
  Helena,
• 15:06
  also known as the place where Napoleon was exiled after the
• 15:10
  Battle of Waterloo.
• 15:11
  SPEAKER_03: What does he have to tell us about 1832?
• 15:12
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, isn't this crazy?
• 15:14
  SPEAKER_03: So he is estimated to be 193 years old.
• 15:16
  SPEAKER_03: Was he born in 1832?
• 15:16
  SPEAKER_03: No.
• 15:20
  yes oh yes it's like a little bit uncertain they like they
• 15:25
  don't have a birth
• 15:25
  certificate for jonathan but they have photos of him definitely
• 15:29
  from 1886 and it's
• 15:31
  based off of his age and they're they're like he's old as fuck
• 15:34
  already he's already
• 15:35
  really old in 1886 so he i think they know for sure that he was
• 15:39
  hatched in the
• 15:40
  SPEAKER_03: seychelles and then this is so crazy
• 15:45
  SPEAKER_03: And then he was brought to St.
• 15:47
  SPEAKER_03: Helena in 1882.
• 15:49
  And since then,
• 15:50
  he has lived at the Plantation House,
• 15:52
  which is the governor's residence.
• 15:54
  SPEAKER_03: So he lives on sort of like the White House of St.
• 15:56
  SPEAKER_03: Helena.
• 15:57
  SPEAKER_03: Right.
• 15:58
  SPEAKER_03: What does he eat?
• 16:00
  SPEAKER_03: Great question.
• 16:01
  SPEAKER_03: So here's a quote from the St.
• 16:02
  SPEAKER_03: Helena official veterinarian, Joe Hollins.
• 16:06
  SPEAKER_03: This is from 2015.
• 16:08
  SPEAKER_03: Jonathan is alive and well.
• 16:09
  He's blind from cataracts,
• 16:10
  has lost his sense of smell,
• 16:12
  and so cannot detect food.
• 16:14
  SPEAKER_03: His fellow giants,
• 16:15
  SPEAKER_03: Mug Hollins,
• 16:17
  SPEAKER_03: that's the name of the other tortoise,
• 16:19
  SPEAKER_03: can detect the tiniest morsel dropped on the ground.
• 16:22
  SPEAKER_03: But he has retained excellent hearing.
• 16:26
  SPEAKER_03: And then this is something really interesting.
• 16:28
  SPEAKER_03: Due to his advanced age,
• 16:30
  SPEAKER_03: Jonathan spends his day doing almost everything with his mate,
• 16:33
  SPEAKER_03: Frederick,
• 16:34
  SPEAKER_03: another male tortoise he was introduced to in 1991,
• 16:37
  SPEAKER_03: including eating,
• 16:38
  SPEAKER_03: sleeping,
• 16:39
  SPEAKER_03: and having sex.
• 16:40
  SPEAKER_03: So he's gay.
• 16:41
  SPEAKER_03: Okay.
• 16:42
  i'm sorry he's too blind and dumb and deaf to eat but he can
• 16:47
  fuck all day with his
• 16:50
  gay lover frederick i'm gonna share my screen so that you can
• 16:54
  see um what he looks
• 16:56
  like this is hot in 2025 here's him in 1886 um on the left
• 16:58
  which isn't growing
• 17:04
  SPEAKER_03: I think maybe.
• 17:05
  SPEAKER_02: The whole time.
• 17:06
  SPEAKER_03: And then look, this is super interesting.
• 17:08
  SPEAKER_03: So here's him in 1947 meeting King George VI.
• 17:12
  SPEAKER_03: And then here is him in 2022 with Prince Edward.
• 17:15
  SPEAKER_02: Isn't that insane?
• 17:17
  Guys,
• 17:17
  this turtle is dwarfing the heir apparent to the British throne
• 17:21
  in this picture.
• 17:23
  SPEAKER_02: William looks tiny in comparison.
• 17:28
  SPEAKER_03: Okay,
• 17:29
  SPEAKER_03: so then I got into sort of a tortoise rabbit hole,
• 17:32
  SPEAKER_03: which is kind of a pun because it's like the tortoise and the hare.
• 17:34
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, I get it.
• 17:36
  And Rebecca had said you should talk to Claire,
• 17:39
  her friend,
• 17:39
  because she's really into tortoises.
• 17:41
  SPEAKER_03: And her family has a tortoise that's like 70 years old.
• 17:44
  SPEAKER_03: Like it's been in the family for a long time.
• 17:46
  And she told me a fun fact,
• 17:48
  which is,
• 17:48
  do you know how Aeschylus,
• 17:50
  the Greek playwright,
• 17:51
  died?
• 17:53
  SPEAKER_03: No.
• 17:54
  He was killed in 455 BC when a tortoise fell from the sky and
• 17:58
  struck him on the head.
• 18:00
  SPEAKER_03: What?
• 18:01
  SPEAKER_03: An oracle had predicted death from above for a skellus,
• 18:04
  SPEAKER_03: so the writer resolved to keep nothing but clear blue sky above him.
• 18:06
  SPEAKER_03: His plan worked until one day,
• 18:08
  SPEAKER_03: unnoticed by a skellus,
• 18:09
  an eagle circled far overhead carrying a tortoise that it
• 18:11
  wished to eat for lunch.
• 18:12
  SPEAKER_03: Mistaking a skellus's bald dome for a rock,
• 18:15
  SPEAKER_03: the eagle dropped the tortoise intending to break the creature open.
• 18:19
  SPEAKER_03: Instead, it was his skull that got split.
• 18:21
  SPEAKER_03: Isn't that interesting?
• 18:23
  SPEAKER_03: Oh, my God.
• 18:24
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 18:26
  SPEAKER_03: So I learned a lot about 1832.
• 18:28
  SPEAKER_03: Wow.
• 18:30
  SPEAKER_03: Okay.
• 18:30
  SPEAKER_03: And then the only person of note who died is Goethe.
• 18:34
  Okay.
• 18:35
  SPEAKER_03: And here we go.
• 18:36
  SPEAKER_03: It's 1832.
• 18:36
  SPEAKER_03: Perfect.
• 18:38
  SPEAKER_02: Let's go.
• 18:38
  SPEAKER_03: Wait, who's the president?
• 18:41
  SPEAKER_03: Well, I'm going to talk about that right now.
• 18:42
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 18:42
  SPEAKER_03: Okay.
• 18:43
  SPEAKER_03: So...
• 18:44
  I want to tell a story of 1832 that is about change and turmoil
• 18:50
  and expansion.
• 18:51
  SPEAKER_03: Hell yeah.
• 18:53
  SPEAKER_03: So rock with me, babe.
• 18:54
  SPEAKER_03: I'm rocking with you.
• 18:55
  SPEAKER_03: Just to quickly paint a picture,
• 18:58
  William Lloyd Garrison founded the New England Anti-Slavery
• 19:02
  Society in 1832.
• 19:04
  SPEAKER_03: Speaking of tortoises, Ecuador annexed the Galapagos in 1832.
• 19:09
  SPEAKER_03: Charles Darwin and the HMS Beagle arrived in South America in 1832.
• 19:15
  SPEAKER_03: There was a uprising of enslaved people in Jamaica,
• 19:19
  SPEAKER_03: 60,000 to 300,000 estimated people participated in that revolution.
• 19:24
  SPEAKER_03: Can I ask you a question?
• 19:25
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 19:26
  SPEAKER_03: Jamaica is part of England at that time.
• 19:29
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 19:29
  SPEAKER_03: Great.
• 19:30
  SPEAKER_03: Great.
• 19:31
  SPEAKER_03: There was a silver rush in Chile.
• 19:35
  SPEAKER_03: So super interesting time.
• 19:37
  SPEAKER_03: I'm thinking about waves.
• 19:38
  SPEAKER_03: I'm thinking about explosion.
• 19:39
  SPEAKER_03: I'm thinking about plunder.
• 19:41
  SPEAKER_03: And Andrew Jackson was president, which kind of works with that theme.
• 19:46
  SPEAKER_03: He was elected for his second term in 1832.
• 19:49
  SPEAKER_03: I was doing some reading on Jackson,
• 19:55
  SPEAKER_03: and I liked this quote on his Wikipedia page,
• 19:57
  SPEAKER_03: which I think is insane.
• 19:58
  SPEAKER_03: It writes...
• 19:59
  SPEAKER_03: Of all presidential reputations,
• 20:01
  SPEAKER_03: Jackson's is perhaps the most difficult to summarize or explain.
• 20:06
  because he was like an autocrat yeah and horrible racist i
• 20:10
  don't know why it's so
• 20:11
  difficult to summarize or explain well do you you don't know
• 20:14
  this maybe but before
• 20:16
  hamilton there was a rock musical about andrew jackson that did
• 20:21
  an off-broadway
• 20:23
  SPEAKER_02: tour in new york when i was in high school and i saw it and his legacy is
• 20:27
  SPEAKER_02: complicated yeah because though he was racist he adopted that little boy
• 20:32
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, I don't know about the little boy.
• 20:33
  SPEAKER_02: He adopted like a native boy, I think.
• 20:36
  SPEAKER_02: I don't remember.
• 20:36
  SPEAKER_02: I saw this 20 years ago and it was a rock opera.
• 20:40
  SPEAKER_03: So it may or may not have been accurate.
• 20:42
  SPEAKER_03: So I'm not sure what you're saying.
• 20:44
  SPEAKER_02: But it was basically like,
• 20:45
  I honestly think there's no way Lin-Manuel Miranda didn't see
• 20:48
  this thing because it
• 20:49
  SPEAKER_02: was like,
• 20:50
  SPEAKER_02: it was like taking the story of Andrew Jackson as this kind of like...
• 20:55
  bad badass guy and like re remixing it remix um in a new light
• 21:06
  i mean that's kind
• 21:07
  of what we do isn't it we make the rock opera of the past it'd
• 21:11
  be so cool if we
• 21:12
  SPEAKER_02: wrote a song every episode
• 21:15
  SPEAKER_03: I wish we had musical talent, as always.
• 21:18
  But something that happened in 1832 for Jackson was that his
• 21:23
  vice president,
• 21:24
  SPEAKER_03: John C.
• 21:25
  SPEAKER_03: Calhoun,
• 21:25
  SPEAKER_03: resigned,
• 21:26
  SPEAKER_03: which was the first time that a vice president had done that.
• 21:29
  SPEAKER_03: In disgrace?
• 21:30
  SPEAKER_03: No.
• 21:31
  SPEAKER_03: He left in anger and also related to a number of scandals,
• 21:35
  but also in part because he wanted to become a senator from
• 21:38
  South Carolina so that
• 21:40
  SPEAKER_03: he could better advocate for slavery.
• 21:42
  SPEAKER_03: So it was just pure slavery, racism, motivation, really.
• 21:47
  SPEAKER_03: But this other interesting thing was happening in 1832 among the women of
• 21:52
  SPEAKER_03: Washington,
• 21:52
  SPEAKER_03: including John C.
• 21:53
  SPEAKER_03: Calhoun's wife.
• 21:55
  SPEAKER_03: So there was a secretary of war in Jackson's cabinet named John Eaton.
• 22:02
  SPEAKER_03: And Eaton was married to this woman named Peggy O'Neill Eaton.
• 22:07
  and Calhoun's wife whose name was and I'm not lying fluoride
• 22:13
  but I assume it's
• 22:14
  pronounced fluoride fluoride fluoride led a social
• 22:23
  ostracization campaign against
• 22:26
  this woman Peggy Eaton because Peggy was the daughter of a
• 22:29
  tavern keeper and
• 22:31
  SPEAKER_03: everyone suspected that she was like a prostitute whore sounds like it
• 22:36
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 22:36
  SPEAKER_03: And all the women in Washington like banned against her mean girl style.
• 22:41
  SPEAKER_03: And literally,
• 22:42
  this was part of the reason why Calhoun resigned because
• 22:44
  Jackson took the side of
• 22:45
  SPEAKER_03: Eaton.
• 22:46
  SPEAKER_03: Because I think Jackson's wife,
• 22:47
  SPEAKER_03: maybe you remember this from the rock opera,
• 22:49
  SPEAKER_03: Jackson's wife was already dead at this point,
• 22:51
  SPEAKER_03: but like also had maybe kind of dubious origins.
• 22:53
  SPEAKER_03: Jackson just like took the side of the like, you know, the shamed woman.
• 22:58
  SPEAKER_03: And it's called the petticoat affair, this whole scandal.
• 23:02
  SPEAKER_03: Oh, I've heard of that.
• 23:03
  SPEAKER_03: Isn't that interesting?
• 23:05
  Maybe you've seen the 1936 film adaptation of The Scandal
• 23:09
  starring Joan Crawford
• 23:10
  SPEAKER_03: called,
• 23:11
  SPEAKER_03: I'm not kidding,
• 23:12
  SPEAKER_03: The Gorgeous Hussy.
• 23:15
  SPEAKER_02: No, I'm not familiar with any of this.
• 23:18
  SPEAKER_02: Wow.
• 23:18
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, this is fascinating.
• 23:19
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, hit after hit on my part.
• 23:21
  SPEAKER_02: Hit after hit.
• 23:24
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 23:25
  SPEAKER_02: So do we know if she was a whore?
• 23:28
  SPEAKER_03: I mean,
• 23:29
  SPEAKER_03: apparently she would like play piano in the bar,
• 23:32
  SPEAKER_03: which was,
• 23:32
  SPEAKER_03: you know,
• 23:33
  SPEAKER_03: considered to be not good.
• 23:36
  SPEAKER_03: It was like a male space and she was in it.
• 23:41
  SPEAKER_03: So I don't know.
• 23:42
  I just thought that was interesting that these women tore apart
• 23:46
  Jackson's cabinet.
• 23:47
  SPEAKER_03: I think it's kind of like Real Housewives style.
• 23:50
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 23:51
  SPEAKER_02: You love to see it.
• 23:52
  SPEAKER_03: I feel like.
• 23:54
  women of a certain class have always been doing this type of
• 23:58
  thing and isn't it
• 23:58
  sort of like exactly what happens on real housewives of potomac
• 24:01
  like in the early
• 24:02
  seasons i feel like there's like i don't know i cannot keep
• 24:05
  track of what's going
• 24:06
  on on that franchise to be honest last time i watched one of
• 24:09
  them was going to jail
• 24:10
  SPEAKER_02: for like her eighth dui it was like really crazy over there
• 24:15
  um it's too much it's real housewives of potomac season one
• 24:18
  let's just say that oh
• 24:19
  and one of them was being accused of like paying for basically
• 24:23
  like giving half of
• 24:24
  her paycheck to the her love interest of the previous season
• 24:27
  like paying him to be
• 24:28
  her love interest oh no so that she would get more airtime i
• 24:33
  feel like having a
• 24:33
  love interest is not the way to get housewives airtime i know
• 24:37
  but you have to
• 24:38
  SPEAKER_02: commit crime you have to commit yeah fraud
• 24:42
  SPEAKER_03: It's the best way.
• 24:43
  SPEAKER_03: Okay.
• 24:45
  So that's kind of like setting the American scene for 1832 and
• 24:50
  picks up on some of
• 24:50
  SPEAKER_03: the themes that I will be discussing in this next section,
• 24:53
  SPEAKER_03: which has nothing to do with the United States,
• 24:55
  SPEAKER_03: which is really the way in which I'm pushing myself forward.
• 25:00
  Today I want to talk about Japan and a series of 36 woodblock
• 25:08
  prints that were
• 25:09
  SPEAKER_03: created between 1830 and 1832.
• 25:11
  SPEAKER_03: So I'm being a little loose here on timeline by the artist Hokusai.
• 25:18
  It is called 36 Views of Mount Fuji and includes what is
• 25:22
  considered probably the
• 25:23
  SPEAKER_03: most famous work of Japanese art in the Western world,
• 25:26
  SPEAKER_03: which is the Great Wave off Kanagawa.
• 25:29
  SPEAKER_02: Which people have seen because they sell shirts of it at Uniqlo.
• 25:32
  SPEAKER_03: And that's what I'm going to talk about eventually.
• 25:36
  And I'm interested in talking about what I want to talk about
• 25:39
  with you later on the
• 25:40
  SPEAKER_03: episode is like,
• 25:41
  SPEAKER_03: why is this so famous?
• 25:42
  And what does it mean for like Western art history to idolize
• 25:47
  one singular piece of
• 25:49
  SPEAKER_03: Japanese art?
• 25:51
  SPEAKER_03: So first I'm going to talk about it in its context.
• 25:55
  SPEAKER_03: It's as best as I can.
• 25:56
  SPEAKER_03: And then we'll talk about kind of like the Euro-American reception of it.
• 25:59
  SPEAKER_02: Have you ever been to Japan?
• 26:01
  SPEAKER_03: No, I have not.
• 26:04
  SPEAKER_03: Have you?
• 26:04
  SPEAKER_03: No.
• 26:06
  yeah i'm really jealous i'd love to go there's a train like
• 26:09
  when you go on a
• 26:10
  certain train ride you kind of see mount fuji from the like
• 26:15
  different viewpoints
• 26:17
  and so you get kind of like and then people will talk about
• 26:21
  like the hokusai and
• 26:23
  how the 36 views are like around in this way that this train
• 26:26
  track also goes oh
• 26:27
  SPEAKER_02: that's cool interesting
• 26:28
  SPEAKER_03: That's very interesting.
• 26:29
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 26:29
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, you just kind of spoiled it.
• 26:31
  SPEAKER_03: So there are 36 prints in this series.
• 26:35
  He actually also followed it up with another series a couple of
• 26:38
  years later called
• 26:38
  SPEAKER_03: 100 Views of Mount Fuji.
• 26:41
  SPEAKER_03: And each one is like a different perspective on the mountain,
• 26:44
  SPEAKER_03: different angles,
• 26:45
  SPEAKER_03: different views,
• 26:46
  SPEAKER_03: different foregrounds,
• 26:47
  SPEAKER_03: different times of year.
• 26:49
  um in the great wave of course the mountain is like way way in
• 26:53
  the background tiny
• 26:54
  tiny tiny being dwarfed by this enormous wave and there's three
• 26:58
  fishing boats kind
• 26:59
  of like maybe being destroyed by these like tsunami like waves
• 27:03
  and it's are you
• 27:05
  SPEAKER_03: looking it up yeah
• 27:06
  SPEAKER_03: I can share my screen because I have other ones to show you too.
• 27:10
  SPEAKER_03: Okay.
• 27:11
  SPEAKER_03: So that's the great wave.
• 27:13
  SPEAKER_03: And then another famous one is called fine wind clear morning.
• 27:16
  And here the mountain is shown in autumn and it's like being
• 27:21
  burnished in like this
• 27:22
  SPEAKER_03: bright,
• 27:22
  SPEAKER_03: beautiful red.
• 27:23
  SPEAKER_03: And it's like a more clear view of the mountain.
• 27:27
  And like the very famous snow capped peak is like a little bit
• 27:30
  melted because of
• 27:31
  SPEAKER_03: the time of year.
• 27:33
  and then in other versions of the mountain it's like what
• 27:37
  you're saying like human
• 27:38
  life really takes the like foreground of the photo I mean the
• 27:42
  print and people are
• 27:44
  like building houses and working on boats and kind of just like
• 27:48
  going about their
• 27:48
  life with the mountain behind them and Mount Fuji is considered
• 27:53
  to be like a holy
• 27:53
  site it's one of three holy mountains in Japan along with Mount
• 27:57
  Tate and Mount Haku
• 27:58
  SPEAKER_03: and
• 28:00
  SPEAKER_03: And as you know, because you've been there, it's a volcano.
• 28:05
  SPEAKER_03: So I want to talk about volcanoes.
• 28:07
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, you didn't?
• 28:07
  SPEAKER_02: No.
• 28:09
  SPEAKER_02: You went there.
• 28:09
  SPEAKER_02: I didn't go to Mount Fuji.
• 28:13
  SPEAKER_02: I went to look at the monkeys.
• 28:15
  SPEAKER_02: What monkeys?
• 28:16
  SPEAKER_02: In Hokkaido, there are monkeys in the snow.
• 28:19
  SPEAKER_02: Nice.
• 28:22
  SPEAKER_03: Okay,
• 28:22
  SPEAKER_03: so in this follow-up that I mentioned,
• 28:25
  SPEAKER_03: this book that Hokusai made called 100 Views of Mount Fuji,
• 28:29
  SPEAKER_03: he includes a view of Mount Fuji's crater.
• 28:31
  SPEAKER_03: There's a crater on one side of the mountain,
• 28:33
  SPEAKER_03: which is what erupts,
• 28:35
  SPEAKER_03: I guess,
• 28:35
  SPEAKER_03: when it erupts,
• 28:37
  SPEAKER_03: which doesn't happen very often.
• 28:38
  SPEAKER_03: The last time it erupted was 1707.
• 28:41
  SPEAKER_03: And that eruption lasted from December 1707 until February 1708.
• 28:47
  SPEAKER_03: And so it's not like Pompeii or something.
• 28:50
  SPEAKER_03: No, it seems like it didn't kill like everybody.
• 28:52
  SPEAKER_03: It had it was very detrimental to Japan.
• 28:55
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 28:56
  I don't know how widespread,
• 28:57
  but at least the adjacent areas at the time.
• 28:59
  So there was massive amounts of volcanic ash that were released
• 29:02
  in the region,
• 29:03
  SPEAKER_03: causing flooding,
• 29:04
  SPEAKER_03: landslides,
• 29:06
  SPEAKER_03: and famine.
• 29:06
  SPEAKER_03: And the eruption... Wait.
• 29:10
  SPEAKER_03: Sorry.
• 29:10
  I was going to say the eruption was also probably the result of
• 29:13
  a series of earthquakes.
• 29:14
  SPEAKER_03: So I think it was a destructive time in general.
• 29:16
  SPEAKER_03: Okay.
• 29:17
  SPEAKER_02: Japan's interesting because of the way they build.
• 29:21
  SPEAKER_02: Like...
• 29:22
  SPEAKER_02: Every 100 years, they have to rebuild their entire country somehow.
• 29:27
  SPEAKER_02: Because of some sort of catastrophe?
• 29:30
  SPEAKER_02: Fire, bombing.
• 29:32
  There was a horrific fire in Tokyo that basically destroyed the
• 29:35
  whole thing at one point.
• 29:36
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, I read about that.
• 29:37
  SPEAKER_02: Because it's all wood.
• 29:39
  well speaking of fire japan is on a thing called the ring of
• 29:46
  fire which is actually
• 29:47
  a term i didn't know it's like the most geologically active
• 29:50
  region of earth and it
• 29:52
  stretches here i'll show you a picture of it i didn't know
• 29:55
  about this i know i'm
• 29:56
  like i didn't know it had a name but it basically this is like
• 29:59
  where things are the
• 30:00
  most active tectonically it just like wraps around the entire
• 30:05
  pacific ocean sense
• 30:07
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, it's like all the way down North America.
• 30:09
  SPEAKER_03: So around California and then South America.
• 30:12
  SPEAKER_03: And it's a 25,000 miles.
• 30:14
  SPEAKER_03: This is why I feel so secure on the East Coast.
• 30:17
  yeah i mean we have other issues over here but the ring of fire
• 30:21
  certainly does
• 30:22
  doesn't sound good no and like pictured here is mount saint
• 30:25
  helena which have you
• 30:26
  ever heard about this like that mountain in the pacific
• 30:29
  northwest like everybody
• 30:31
  knows that at one point it will it's a volcano and i think i've
• 30:34
  been there i didn't
• 30:35
  know that was a volcano either why is no one telling you i
• 30:39
  probably just wasn't
• 30:40
  SPEAKER_02: listening yeah
• 30:42
  SPEAKER_03: Well, so then I was doing a little bit of volcano research.
• 30:46
  SPEAKER_03: Sorry, this episode is a bit weird.
• 30:48
  Perfect.
• 30:49
  SPEAKER_03: I'm like tortoises and volcanoes, but I swear I'm talking about Japan.
• 30:53
  SPEAKER_03: So people for many,
• 30:55
  SPEAKER_03: many centuries thought that volcanoes,
• 30:58
  one of the theories about what volcanoes were was that they
• 31:00
  were basically the
• 31:01
  SPEAKER_03: result of fires that were burning inside of the earth.
• 31:05
  um and athanasius kirker who's sort of a mandyline hero a
• 31:09
  jesuit priest um from the
• 31:10
  18th century he published a book on volcanoes called mundus
• 31:13
  subterraneous where he
• 31:15
  talks about volcanoes as kind of these like release valves of
• 31:18
  the fire within is
• 31:20
  that wrong yeah actually it is wrong um though it sounds right
• 31:24
  i'm like isn't
• 31:26
  SPEAKER_02: everything love like the molten core
• 31:29
  But I think that the earth is actually solid and volcanoes are
• 31:32
  a result of where
• 31:34
  SPEAKER_03: tectonic plates are converging and diverging.
• 31:37
  SPEAKER_03: And so when they hit each other and they like release the fire.
• 31:41
  SPEAKER_02: But where's the heat coming from?
• 31:43
  SPEAKER_03: I don't know.
• 31:44
  SPEAKER_03: I didn't figure that out.
• 31:48
  SPEAKER_03: I literally tried.
• 31:50
  SPEAKER_03: Okay.
• 31:51
  SPEAKER_03: But it did confuse me too.
• 31:52
  SPEAKER_03: Aren't the tectonic plates on lava?
• 31:54
  SPEAKER_03: There's many, many layers.
• 31:57
  SPEAKER_03: Okay, there's the hot mantle of molten rock.
• 32:00
  SPEAKER_03: Well, so then my dad was just talking to me about this.
• 32:03
  SPEAKER_03: This woman,
• 32:03
  this Danish woman who in the 1930s realized that the Earth's
• 32:08
  core was solid,
• 32:09
  SPEAKER_03: not liquid,
• 32:10
  SPEAKER_03: as scientists had believed.
• 32:11
  SPEAKER_03: So I think...
• 32:12
  And it's not true that the earth is,
• 32:14
  there's just like a huge ball of fire inside of the earth.
• 32:18
  SPEAKER_03: Okay.
• 32:18
  I think that's kind of the...
• 32:19
  Athenius Kircher had like a hollow earth theory.
• 32:22
  SPEAKER_03: Exactly.
• 32:23
  Like if you go and look at Mundus Subterraneous,
• 32:26
  he has some diagrams that demonstrate that.
• 32:29
  SPEAKER_03: Okay.
• 32:30
  SPEAKER_03: Like for example, this one...
• 32:32
  SPEAKER_02: Okay,
• 32:32
  the picture that Mabel is showing me is basically just a circle
• 32:37
  with mountains on
• 32:38
  SPEAKER_02: the top of it and then like veins underneath.
• 32:40
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, just fire exploding.
• 32:43
  SPEAKER_03: And a fire in the center.
• 32:44
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, it actually looks a lot more like a diagram of a cell.
• 32:47
  SPEAKER_02: It looks biological, which I guess... Yeah, microcosm, macrocosm.
• 32:51
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, it's all the same.
• 32:52
  SPEAKER_03: Okay, so that is...
• 32:56
  SPEAKER_03: the volcano context that I felt necessary to share.
• 33:01
  But now I'm going to talk a little bit about Hokusai and how he
• 33:03
  fits into this 1832 story.
• 33:07
  SPEAKER_03: So he was born around 1760.
• 33:09
  SPEAKER_03: They don't know exactly when he was born.
• 33:11
  And he's kind of like the Mozart of Japanese art history in
• 33:15
  that he was incredibly productive.
• 33:18
  SPEAKER_03: He produced some 30,000 works in his lifetime.
• 33:22
  And he started painting when he was six years old and then
• 33:25
  learned how to wood
• 33:26
  SPEAKER_03: carve when he was a teenager.
• 33:28
  SPEAKER_03: He did this thing,
• 33:29
  SPEAKER_03: which is apparently pretty common in Japan,
• 33:31
  SPEAKER_03: where he changed his name many times,
• 33:33
  like to represent different periods of his life and different
• 33:35
  periods of his
• 33:36
  SPEAKER_03: artistic output.
• 33:37
  SPEAKER_03: But he did it more than accumulate them.
• 33:39
  SPEAKER_03: Or do they?
• 33:40
  SPEAKER_03: It's like a new identity.
• 33:42
  SPEAKER_02: I want to do that.
• 33:43
  SPEAKER_02: Who do you want to be?
• 33:44
  SPEAKER_02: I'll decide.
• 33:46
  SPEAKER_02: You're like Spider-Man.
• 33:49
  SPEAKER_02: From this day forward, I'm Spider-Man.
• 33:56
  SPEAKER_02: Everything stays the same in my life.
• 33:58
  SPEAKER_02: I just go by Spider-Man.
• 34:01
  SPEAKER_03: Okay, so Spider-Man, to continue my story.
• 34:05
  And you can kind of understand why he would change his name
• 34:08
  because there was also
• 34:09
  like very dramatic shifts in his career kind of like aligned
• 34:12
  with decades.
• 34:13
  SPEAKER_03: So like in...
• 34:15
  SPEAKER_03: By the early 1800s,
• 34:16
  SPEAKER_03: he was incredibly successful,
• 34:18
  SPEAKER_03: like being commissioned to make these huge murals or temples.
• 34:22
  And he was like performing his work for the shogun,
• 34:25
  the Japanese military leader.
• 34:28
  SPEAKER_03: And by 1810, he became known for making these drawing manuals.
• 34:33
  that are called the hokusai manga and those actually made their
• 34:37
  way to europe here
• 34:38
  i'll show you a picture of those i don't know if you've ever
• 34:40
  seen these but they're
• 34:41
  really cool um it's just like those are cool diagrams of people
• 34:45
  like basically
• 34:46
  they're kind of how-to manuals but and like the one i'm showing
• 34:50
  you is like of two
• 34:50
  sumo wrestlers like in 18 different positions all cluttered
• 34:54
  onto one page yeah um
• 34:56
  SPEAKER_03: and
• 34:57
  So they did make their way to Europe,
• 35:01
  and people started thinking that they were really cool.
• 35:06
  SPEAKER_03: But by the 1820s,
• 35:07
  SPEAKER_03: Hokusai experienced a series of personal tragedies,
• 35:11
  SPEAKER_03: like the death of his wife and one of his daughters,
• 35:13
  SPEAKER_03: and he started losing a lot of commissions,
• 35:15
  SPEAKER_03: and he kind of was lost and...
• 35:18
  failing um which makes the success in the 1830s with the 36
• 35:23
  views of mount fuji
• 35:24
  even more meaningful um and he because he was over 70 years old
• 35:29
  at that point but
• 35:30
  he was like full of passion still working and there's this
• 35:33
  quote of his which is
• 35:35
  really sweet i think which where he says maybe by the time i
• 35:39
  reach the age of 110
• 35:40
  SPEAKER_03: every dot and line will appear to have a life of its own
• 35:44
  SPEAKER_03: And there's these descriptions of him just like huddled over his desk,
• 35:47
  SPEAKER_03: like literally couldn't stop making art,
• 35:49
  SPEAKER_03: which is cool.
• 35:50
  SPEAKER_02: That's cute.
• 35:51
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 35:52
  SPEAKER_03: And to kind of go back to the symbolic meaning of Mount Fuji,
• 35:57
  the people think that like he decided to depict the mountain at
• 36:00
  that point in his
• 36:01
  career because it's considered part of its like sacred meaning
• 36:04
  is that it's
• 36:04
  SPEAKER_03: considered to be associated with longevity.
• 36:06
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 36:09
  SPEAKER_03: And it just was like a personal,
• 36:11
  SPEAKER_03: personal meaning for him because of where he was in his career.
• 36:15
  SPEAKER_01: Cute.
• 36:19
  SPEAKER_03: I mentioned before that the Hokusai manga did make its way to Europe,
• 36:24
  SPEAKER_03: which is significant because Hokusai was working during the Edo period,
• 36:29
  SPEAKER_03: which lasted from 1615 until 1867.
• 36:30
  SPEAKER_03: I can't talk.
• 36:31
  SPEAKER_03: And that period of time was marked in part by Japan's
• 36:41
  isolationist policy so right they like didn't nobody was
• 36:46
  allowed to come in and
• 36:47
  nobody was allowed to leave except they had like a very limited
• 36:50
  relationship with
• 36:51
  the dutch um and so that yeah it's my understanding that that
• 36:57
  that was true but
• 37:00
  SPEAKER_02: also there were like trade relations like things were coming out yeah
• 37:07
  that is my understanding as well it was just like incredibly
• 37:09
  restricted yeah um and
• 37:11
  basically that ended when the americans did something called
• 37:16
  the perry expedition
• 37:17
  when this guy named i think matthew perry it was matthew perry
• 37:22
  i remember that i
• 37:23
  can't miss i can't forget that um the americans just sent two
• 37:28
  warships to japan and
• 37:30
  forced them to open up to the rest it wouldn't surprise me if
• 37:33
  he was related
• 37:34
  i actually think i looked it up and i couldn't like you know i
• 37:37
  feel like wikipedia
• 37:38
  really like amplifies random relations yeah like what was the
• 37:43
  one that i was
• 37:43
  interested in like the people who are on the yeast packets
• 37:47
  fleishman is that what
• 37:48
  it is not fleishman's yeast yeah fleishman's yeast like that
• 37:51
  the guy who started
• 37:52
  that fleishman is related to elizabeth holmes which i learned
• 37:56
  about and wrote in a
• 37:56
  newsletter recently like it's just that's interesting like
• 37:59
  wikipedia is like they
• 37:59
  were related and that wasn't happening for matthew perry and
• 38:02
  matthew perry so who
• 38:03
  SPEAKER_03: knows
• 38:04
  SPEAKER_02: Who knows?
• 38:04
  SPEAKER_03: So in 1832, of course,
• 38:09
  SPEAKER_03: Japan is still, quote unquote, locked in.
• 38:14
  And some people see the wave as an analogy for like this
• 38:19
  growing interest in Japan
• 38:20
  SPEAKER_03: to open up to the rest of the world.
• 38:22
  SPEAKER_03: And like,
• 38:23
  SPEAKER_03: or that this wave is coming,
• 38:24
  SPEAKER_03: like,
• 38:25
  SPEAKER_03: and that the American warships are coming,
• 38:27
  SPEAKER_03: that the rest of the world is like on the brink,
• 38:30
  SPEAKER_03: on the edge of its seat,
• 38:31
  SPEAKER_03: trying to get in.
• 38:32
  SPEAKER_03: And I actually, I think I've not talked about this on the podcast.
• 38:36
  SPEAKER_03: Maybe I have.
• 38:36
  SPEAKER_03: I read this biography of Isabel Stewart Gardner
• 38:39
  um who was a very wealthy woman in boston who ended up starting
• 38:43
  a museum but she
• 38:45
  was one of these like early americans to go to japan and like
• 38:48
  i've read about these
• 38:49
  accounts of like the first people who got in basically as
• 38:52
  tourists and it's just
• 38:53
  like there was this kind of like predatorial like they wanted
• 38:57
  to get in they wanted
• 38:58
  to start taking the stuff they wanted to like be the first it's
• 39:01
  like going to the
• 39:01
  SPEAKER_03: moon now i guess or mars yeah
• 39:05
  SPEAKER_02: Well,
• 39:05
  also because like Japan previously had had all of these trade
• 39:09
  relationships with
• 39:10
  SPEAKER_02: the English and the Dutch.
• 39:11
  So there were like Japanese things like people prize Japanese
• 39:15
  things in the 18th century.
• 39:16
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 39:19
  SPEAKER_03: And yeah, so it's like what you you want, what you can't have.
• 39:22
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 39:22
  So it was just like rare,
• 39:23
  but it wasn't like mystery what was going on in there.
• 39:26
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 39:27
  SPEAKER_03: Well,
• 39:28
  SPEAKER_03: and what's also interesting,
• 39:29
  SPEAKER_03: as you were already suggesting,
• 39:31
  is like this isolationist policy is kind of a fallacy because
• 39:34
  one of the other
• 39:35
  really interesting things about 36 views of Mount Fuji is that
• 39:38
  it's one of the kind
• 39:39
  SPEAKER_03: of like signatures of the series is the color blue.
• 39:44
  SPEAKER_03: And that is very distinctive.
• 39:47
  He's using Prussian blue,
• 39:49
  which was a pigment that was discovered in Europe in the 18th
• 39:52
  century.
• 39:53
  SPEAKER_03: So even though Japan is isolated,
• 39:56
  SPEAKER_03: So it's like what you see when you look at these prints,
• 39:59
  SPEAKER_03: especially the Great Wave,
• 40:00
  SPEAKER_03: is that powerful blue.
• 40:02
  SPEAKER_03: So I thought we could have a little interlude about Prussian blue.
• 40:05
  SPEAKER_03: Okay, great.
• 40:06
  SPEAKER_03: I'm like tortoises, volcanoes, Prussian blue.
• 40:09
  SPEAKER_03: Prussian blue.
• 40:11
  SPEAKER_03: Okay, so you're the pigment expert, but I'll do my understanding.
• 40:15
  SPEAKER_02: I don't really know about this one.
• 40:17
  SPEAKER_03: Oh, okay.
• 40:17
  SPEAKER_03: That's weird.
• 40:19
  SPEAKER_02: Well, I don't really... I know about like fake colors.
• 40:22
  SPEAKER_03: Well, I mean, what is a fake color?
• 40:25
  SPEAKER_03: Can you...
• 40:26
  like an aniline dye or like like the maiji period in japanese
• 40:30
  printmaking they're
• 40:30
  obsessed with this red that is an aniline dye which is
• 40:33
  basically a byproduct of
• 40:35
  coal production and so if you look at maiji prints there's
• 40:37
  often this really really
• 40:38
  really garish red like a vermilion in it and that is a result
• 40:45
  of the discovery of
• 40:46
  SPEAKER_02: aniline dyes in england in the 1850s
• 40:50
  SPEAKER_02: But I don't know about stuff before that.
• 40:52
  SPEAKER_03: Well,
• 40:53
  SPEAKER_03: Prussian blue,
• 40:54
  SPEAKER_03: I mean,
• 40:54
  SPEAKER_03: it's kind of similar,
• 40:55
  SPEAKER_03: though I don't understand the science necessarily.
• 40:57
  Basically,
• 40:58
  there was these alchemists named Johann Conrad D.
• 41:02
  Pell and Johann Jakob D.
• 41:04
  Spock.
• 41:05
  SPEAKER_03: Um,
• 41:06
  SPEAKER_03: and D spec was trying to make a red pigment,
• 41:10
  SPEAKER_03: but then he accidentally used his potash was contaminated with potash.
• 41:15
  SPEAKER_03: His potash was like, it's like a, I've heard that word.
• 41:19
  SPEAKER_03: It's some sort of like chemical ingredient.
• 41:21
  SPEAKER_03: Let's let me look up what that means.
• 41:23
  SPEAKER_03: Okay.
• 41:24
  SPEAKER_03: His potash was contaminated.
• 41:26
  SPEAKER_03: His potash,
• 41:27
  SPEAKER_03: which means an alkaline potassium compound,
• 41:29
  SPEAKER_03: especially potassium carbonate or hydroxide.
• 41:32
  SPEAKER_03: His potash was contaminated by animal blood.
• 41:35
  SPEAKER_03: Oh, of course.
• 41:36
  SPEAKER_03: And so the result was this crazy staggering blue pigment.
• 41:42
  SPEAKER_03: I think of Prussian blue in maybe more contemporary terms.
• 41:46
  SPEAKER_03: It's like Eve Klein blue in my mind.
• 41:49
  SPEAKER_03: I don't think it literally is.
• 41:50
  SPEAKER_03: But it's striking cerulean.
• 41:54
  SPEAKER_03: It's darker than the sweater in the Devil Wears Prada.
• 41:59
  SPEAKER_02: I feel like blue also... It's like lapis.
• 42:03
  SPEAKER_02: It's fake lapis.
• 42:04
  SPEAKER_02: That's kind of the thing about it.
• 42:05
  SPEAKER_02: Because blue for the longest time was only lapis.
• 42:09
  SPEAKER_02: And there's...
• 42:11
  I feel like for a while everyone was talking about how like
• 42:12
  blue didn't exist in
• 42:14
  SPEAKER_02: ancient Greece or something.
• 42:15
  SPEAKER_03: It kind of didn't.
• 42:17
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, basically blues were very different before Prussian blue.
• 42:21
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 42:22
  And it changed the course of our history because immediately
• 42:25
  basically painters in
• 42:27
  SPEAKER_03: France like leapt on Prussian blue.
• 42:29
  And like when you look through 18th century painting,
• 42:32
  it's all about the blue.
• 42:33
  yeah people were because before that what was blue the madonna
• 42:38
  the dress of the
• 42:38
  madonna and that was usually lapis yeah and it was like meant
• 42:42
  to be this very
• 42:42
  prized pigment yeah i think it was yeah maybe just so rare and
• 42:46
  also duller um so
• 42:51
  this was a huge discovery it was sort of like the invention of
• 42:53
  chocolate chip
• 42:54
  cookies it was a happy accident um and they kept was that an
• 42:57
  accident yeah i feel
• 42:59
  SPEAKER_03: like the story of the chocolate chip cookies origin is that they like
• 43:01
  SPEAKER_03: accidentally spilled chocolate chips in there.
• 43:03
  SPEAKER_03: I've never heard that one.
• 43:04
  SPEAKER_03: And the rest was history.
• 43:07
  So Diesbeck accidentally discovers this pigment and he keeps
• 43:11
  its origin a secret
• 43:13
  SPEAKER_03: for 20 years,
• 43:14
  but painters went crazy for it because it was so much more
• 43:17
  powerful than other
• 43:18
  SPEAKER_03: available pigments.
• 43:20
  SPEAKER_03: And did you know there's such a thing as a color historian?
• 43:22
  SPEAKER_03: No.
• 43:23
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, of course.
• 43:24
  SPEAKER_03: Michel Pastoreau, you must know his work.
• 43:28
  SPEAKER_03: He wrote,
• 43:29
  everything changed in the first half of the 18th century with
• 43:32
  the invention of this
• 43:32
  SPEAKER_03: pigment,
• 43:33
  which permitted feats that had been impossible for centuries
• 43:36
  and transformed the
• 43:36
  SPEAKER_03: palettes of painters for almost 200 years.
• 43:39
  um so if people went gaga for it including hokusai um so some
• 43:46
  people also theorize
• 43:47
  that like his use of the color blue was another like kind of
• 43:51
  subtle way of
• 43:52
  signaling that people were like getting antsy wanting to be
• 43:55
  connected to this
• 43:55
  SPEAKER_03: larger world where colors were coming from um
• 44:00
  SPEAKER_03: And that kind of relates to me,
• 44:04
  SPEAKER_03: in my mind,
• 44:05
  SPEAKER_03: to ultimately another story I want to tell,
• 44:07
  which is about the reception of Japanese woodblock prints and
• 44:11
  how those are
• 44:12
  positioned in the history of Impressionism and how kind of the
• 44:16
  birth of modernism.
• 44:19
  And a lot of people talk about Japanese art as having kind of
• 44:23
  incited this
• 44:23
  SPEAKER_03: revolution in European art history.
• 44:26
  SPEAKER_03: Mm-hmm.
• 44:28
  SPEAKER_03: And one of the people who will figure in the story is, is it Goncourt?
• 44:35
  SPEAKER_03: How do you say the brother's name?
• 44:36
  SPEAKER_03: Goncourt.
• 44:38
  SPEAKER_03: This Goncourt,
• 44:39
  SPEAKER_03: Edmond de Goncourt,
• 44:42
  SPEAKER_03: wrote in the 1890s,
• 44:44
  he wrote a book on Hokusai where he writes that despite its
• 44:47
  rather crude colors,
• 44:50
  it's the album which inspires the landscapes of the
• 44:52
  Impressionists of the present
• 44:53
  SPEAKER_03: moment.
• 44:54
  SPEAKER_03: So the color is both like the sort of the revolutionary thing,
• 44:59
  SPEAKER_03: which signifies this like thirst for Europe.
• 45:00
  And it's also sort of like weirdly looked down upon,
• 45:03
  even though it inspired in many ways.
• 45:06
  Well,
• 45:07
  artistic movements in the book I'm reading right now,
• 45:09
  which is a future Mandy Lyon.
• 45:12
  publication which I won't name there's one of the characters is
• 45:16
  a painter who talks
• 45:17
  about Prussian blue and is like or is using Prussian blue as a
• 45:20
  metaphor and is like
• 45:22
  comparing I can't remember you know something in life that is
• 45:26
  amazing but you don't
• 45:27
  want too much of it to Prussian blue because it overwhelms yeah
• 45:33
  like a world before
• 45:34
  Prussian blue was one that valued the color blue so deeply yeah
• 45:38
  it's like too much
• 45:39
  SPEAKER_02: of a good thing it's to be used sparingly
• 45:41
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 45:43
  SPEAKER_03: I've always felt that way about the color blue.
• 45:47
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, I guess.
• 45:50
  SPEAKER_03: And it's interesting to me.
• 45:51
  SPEAKER_03: I mean,
• 45:52
  I don't know if the metaphor that we're talking like too much
• 45:54
  of a good thing
• 45:55
  SPEAKER_03: applies necessarily,
• 45:56
  but there's something kind of related in my mind about like the
• 46:00
  canonization of
• 46:01
  Hokusai and the Great Wave and 36 views of Mount Fuji and
• 46:04
  therefore kind of this
• 46:05
  SPEAKER_03: like reduction of Japanese
• 46:08
  art to only this thing that like incites European creativity
• 46:13
  and like even it's
• 46:15
  kind of not hard but like almost everything you read about the
• 46:18
  great wave is like
• 46:19
  it's a breathtaking composition but it inspired like all these
• 46:23
  other like artists
• 46:25
  in Europe is there anything like is there like a one-to-one
• 46:28
  thing that it said to
• 46:29
  inspire it's just kind of like generally the like way that the
• 46:34
  line was done and
• 46:35
  SPEAKER_02: the
• 46:37
  SPEAKER_02: Do you understand my question?
• 46:40
  I'm like,
• 46:40
  is there one work that this pointed to or it's just kind of
• 46:43
  like general?
• 46:44
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah,
• 46:44
  SPEAKER_03: I mean,
• 46:44
  SPEAKER_03: I guess this is more general,
• 46:45
  SPEAKER_03: this thing I was reading,
• 46:46
  which was like the influence of Japanese color woodcut was felt
• 46:50
  by two generations
• 46:52
  SPEAKER_03: of Parisian artists.
• 46:54
  SPEAKER_03: Like they...
• 46:56
  SPEAKER_03: They were so interested in like the bright flat woodcuts like,
• 47:00
  SPEAKER_03: you know,
• 47:01
  and then they named like Manet and Degas and Gauguin and like
• 47:04
  all these people.
• 47:05
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 47:06
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, the flat color plane, I think, does something.
• 47:09
  SPEAKER_02: It changes huge to European artists.
• 47:14
  SPEAKER_02: And I think also the like the depth of field.
• 47:19
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, there's a it's a flattening.
• 47:21
  SPEAKER_02: I guess we said flat, but it's like more than that.
• 47:23
  It's like the relationship of foreground and background is very
• 47:26
  different from what
• 47:27
  SPEAKER_02: was being taught in European.
• 47:31
  yeah like it's not just that the figures aren't modeled or
• 47:34
  something like it's not
• 47:35
  flatness in the sense of like the drawn line or whatever it's
• 47:38
  like the foreground
• 47:41
  background middle ground are not separated that red on the
• 47:45
  moulin rouge that red is
• 47:47
  SPEAKER_02: the my g red i'm talking about cool yeah
• 47:49
  SPEAKER_03: Well,
• 47:49
  SPEAKER_03: yeah,
• 47:49
  so I just pulled up my screen to show Madeline like three
• 47:52
  example works that were
• 47:53
  SPEAKER_03: referenced when I was doing my research,
• 47:55
  SPEAKER_03: which is this Toulouse-Lautrec print of the Moulin Rouge from 1892,
• 48:00
  SPEAKER_03: which I do think has this like flattening that you're talking about,
• 48:03
  SPEAKER_03: plus has that red pigment that was also inspired by Japanese art.
• 48:08
  SPEAKER_03: And then there's a Van Gogh portrait from 1887, which also...
• 48:13
  SPEAKER_03: has the flattening that we're talking about.
• 48:17
  SPEAKER_02: Do you know who that is?
• 48:17
  SPEAKER_02: The subject of the portrait?
• 48:19
  SPEAKER_02: He was,
• 48:20
  SPEAKER_02: I might be getting this wrong,
• 48:22
  but I'm pretty sure he owned an art supply store and would
• 48:24
  accept paintings for
• 48:26
  SPEAKER_02: work,
• 48:26
  SPEAKER_02: but was also a collector of Japanese prints.
• 48:30
  well that makes sense given this image which is like this man
• 48:33
  with seven Japanese
• 48:35
  prints right behind him and then Mary Cassatt was also really
• 48:40
  inspired by Japanese
• 48:41
  prints and this is a portrait called the afternoon tea party
• 48:45
  which has the same
• 48:46
  kind of quality to it where it's like two women who kind of
• 48:50
  like I don't know these
• 48:51
  women don't look like other Mary Cassatt figures that I've seen
• 48:55
  the perspective is
• 48:56
  SPEAKER_02: so weird
• 48:57
  yeah they're kind of they're like drinking tea while the like
• 48:59
  screen behind them
• 49:00
  like collapses onto them like they're like part of the window
• 49:04
  um what's yeah also
• 49:07
  interesting that i was reading about well i guess so hokusai is
• 49:11
  like part of this
• 49:12
  larger movement called i don't know how to pronounce it ukiyo-e
• 49:16
  it's like floating
• 49:17
  SPEAKER_03: world okay have you heard of floating world
• 49:20
  SPEAKER_03: No, it's pretty.
• 49:21
  SPEAKER_03: It's really pretty.
• 49:22
  SPEAKER_03: That's like the movement in Japan that he's known to have been part of.
• 49:27
  SPEAKER_03: And it's a tradition of printmaking in particular.
• 49:30
  SPEAKER_03: And I think the floating,
• 49:31
  SPEAKER_03: I couldn't honestly figure out exactly why it's called floating world,
• 49:34
  SPEAKER_03: but my understanding is that like,
• 49:35
  This is a type of printmaking that was popular among like lower
• 49:40
  class and people
• 49:41
  within feudal Japan and was not necessarily of like heroes or
• 49:47
  divine subjects.
• 49:48
  It was like more ordinary everyday life things like and I think
• 49:51
  that's what the
• 49:51
  SPEAKER_03: floating world is.
• 49:52
  It's like just like real things like people working on a boat
• 49:55
  in front of the Mount Fuji.
• 49:57
  SPEAKER_03: And that also isn't very inspiring for the impressionists.
• 49:59
  SPEAKER_03: I think it's like it's like ordinary scenes made strange.
• 50:03
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 50:03
  SPEAKER_02: It's sort of interesting to talk about, like, what was inspiring to whom.
• 50:08
  SPEAKER_02: And because,
• 50:09
  SPEAKER_02: I mean,
• 50:10
  SPEAKER_02: realism had been happening in Europe since before this,
• 50:13
  SPEAKER_02: like,
• 50:14
  SPEAKER_02: opening where Corbet's,
• 50:16
  SPEAKER_02: like,
• 50:17
  SPEAKER_02: painting,
• 50:18
  SPEAKER_02: like,
• 50:19
  SPEAKER_02: I think the Burial of Ornan is,
• 50:20
  SPEAKER_02: like,
• 50:21
  SPEAKER_02: the most famous example where it's,
• 50:22
  SPEAKER_02: like,
• 50:23
  SPEAKER_02: an epic,
• 50:24
  SPEAKER_02: like,
• 50:24
  SPEAKER_02: history scale painting of a kind of normal town town.
• 50:30
  funeral like you're like that interest in the normal subject
• 50:34
  matter but obviously
• 50:35
  SPEAKER_02: like then it is being influenced by japan
• 50:39
  SPEAKER_02: I just I mean,
• 50:40
  I don't know if this is where you actually want to go with this
• 50:42
  and we can you can
• 50:43
  SPEAKER_02: redirect me.
• 50:43
  But if you want to talk about like Orientalism and like this
• 50:47
  sort of idea that
• 50:49
  SPEAKER_02: modernism is so influenced by Japanese art,
• 50:51
  SPEAKER_02: it's like something I've been kind of grappling with.
• 50:53
  I think it's like a sort of complicated claim and people don't
• 50:58
  people like pick it
• 50:59
  SPEAKER_02: up and put it down really easily.
• 51:02
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 51:02
  SPEAKER_03: Well, what do you like in what way to you?
• 51:04
  SPEAKER_02: Like, I think, you know, like someone.
• 51:09
  I just think that the Japanese prints enter the European market
• 51:15
  at the same time as
• 51:16
  SPEAKER_02: all of these changes are already underway.
• 51:19
  And so I think they're definitely looking at them and it's
• 51:21
  definitely hugely influential.
• 51:24
  but then I as you're saying like these pigments are going back
• 51:27
  to Japan I don't
• 51:28
  think it's as like one way maybe as it's made out to be I think
• 51:32
  that there's like I
• 51:34
  think that what you're actually getting is that there's a
• 51:35
  global art world all of a
• 51:37
  sudden and like you have a real change because obviously like
• 51:43
  the Japanese market
• 51:44
  SPEAKER_02: is then adapting to what European buyers want
• 51:48
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 51:49
  SPEAKER_03: I feel like people are hunting after this purity of the Japanese spirit,
• 51:53
  SPEAKER_03: which is lost by the time it arrives on European shores.
• 51:57
  And I think that the back and forth dialogue dynamic that
• 52:01
  you're talking about is
• 52:02
  apparent to me in this kind of story of what happens after 1853
• 52:06
  when Japanese goods
• 52:08
  SPEAKER_03: become available to the global market.
• 52:11
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 52:13
  It's kind of like in what I was trying to understand and gather
• 52:16
  was like there was
• 52:16
  the first rush which didn't include the woodcut prints and then
• 52:20
  those became more
• 52:21
  SPEAKER_03: available and in some ways they were kind of like
• 52:25
  SPEAKER_03: Well,
• 52:25
  SPEAKER_03: printmaking has a really interesting specific context in Japan,
• 52:28
  which is that people have been doing woodblock prints since the
• 52:32
  8th century in
• 52:33
  SPEAKER_03: Japan.
• 52:33
  But there was this revolution in the mid-18th century when it
• 52:36
  became possible to
• 52:37
  SPEAKER_03: make these polychromatic prints.
• 52:40
  But printmaking was incredibly commercial because you can't
• 52:44
  make a print alone as an artist.
• 52:46
  There's the designer,
• 52:47
  there's the engraver,
• 52:48
  there's the printer,
• 52:49
  and there's the publisher.
• 52:49
  SPEAKER_03: And
• 52:50
  And publishers didn't invest in a printmaking venture unless
• 52:54
  they thought it would
• 52:55
  SPEAKER_03: have commercial viability.
• 52:57
  SPEAKER_03: So what was made available was like inherently that which could sell.
• 53:02
  And like,
• 53:03
  for example,
• 53:05
  the Great Wave,
• 53:06
  there's thoughts that like the original woodblocks
• 53:10
  SPEAKER_03: printed, yielded 5,000 impressions.
• 53:12
  SPEAKER_03: Like the great wave is not a singular work of art.
• 53:15
  And the cost of a print for a consumer was sort of equal to the
• 53:21
  price of a bowl of noodles.
• 53:23
  SPEAKER_03: So it's like not fine art.
• 53:26
  SPEAKER_03: And I think that the,
• 53:26
  like what I'm very interested in too is kind of like this
• 53:29
  particular meaning of
• 53:30
  SPEAKER_03: printmaking.
• 53:31
  And then this,
• 53:31
  like the fact that the great wave is probably the most iconic
• 53:35
  19th century image.
• 53:36
  globally like it is on t-shirts like i have pictures for you of
• 53:40
  what what it's on
• 53:43
  like of what it's on like here's a sweatshirt here's a hat
• 53:46
  here's lego set here's a
• 53:48
  SPEAKER_03: puzzle that looks fun yeah we should probably do this puzzle
• 53:52
  um and these underwear like i think what's aloha from deer i
• 53:57
  don't know i was
• 53:57
  honestly spawn con i'm pushing you to buy these boxers um you
• 54:05
  know what i'm saying
• 54:06
  like commercialism in its kind of like in original 19th century
• 54:11
  context and then
• 54:12
  the like hyper commercialism of like what people want to see
• 54:15
  from the past but it's
• 54:17
  SPEAKER_02: interesting also to think about like
• 54:19
  you know maybe to the point I'm making maybe not who's who's to
• 54:23
  say because I
• 54:23
  really I'm just sort of talking but but you know like what it's
• 54:29
  influencing but
• 54:30
  also that you're like it's this kind of idea that it's like
• 54:34
  entering Europe at a
• 54:35
  time where like lithography printing is being developed so they
• 54:41
  can reproduce
• 54:41
  SPEAKER_02: images like this very easily all of a sudden
• 54:44
  which wasn't the case earlier in the 19th century and someone
• 54:48
  like Toulouse-Lautrec
• 54:49
  who's interested in Japanese prints is also someone who's
• 54:51
  pushing poster design
• 54:52
  which is not just you know like these mass-produced images and
• 54:56
  advertisements but
• 54:57
  is literally changing the way the city looks because all of a
• 55:00
  sudden you have in
• 55:02
  Paris like if you go over around Paris now you'll see signs
• 55:05
  everywhere that say um
• 55:08
  I can't remember exactly what it is but it's like pod defiche
• 55:11
  we've seen it you've
• 55:12
  SPEAKER_02: seen it
• 55:13
  we've all seen it it's like post no bills basically and they're
• 55:16
  oh yeah we have a
• 55:17
  picture underneath yeah exactly and um or like prohibited i
• 55:24
  don't know i'm just a
• 55:24
  cliche or something um and that's because in the 19th century
• 55:28
  like every surface in
• 55:30
  paris was covered with these advertisements and it was like so
• 55:34
  something like the
• 55:35
  SPEAKER_02: hokusai is not just influencing artists it's like
• 55:38
  influencing this these prints that are then going out defends
• 55:43
  star fichet
• 55:45
  SPEAKER_02: Gorgeous, right?
• 55:46
  SPEAKER_02: And we look stunning.
• 55:47
  SPEAKER_02: One of the worst photos ever taken.
• 55:50
  SPEAKER_02: Thanks, Virgil.
• 55:55
  SPEAKER_02: But,
• 55:55
  SPEAKER_02: you know,
• 55:56
  it's like it's just this it's entering Europe at this like the
• 56:01
  Goncourt's kind of
• 56:02
  SPEAKER_02: an interesting comparison because they're really interested in it.
• 56:04
  SPEAKER_02: Like they're obsessed with Rococo in the 18th century.
• 56:08
  And so a lot of the Japanese stuff that they collect is like
• 56:10
  very fine was in
• 56:12
  SPEAKER_02: French collections in the 18th century.
• 56:15
  is not this kind of like mass-produced image the goncores are
• 56:19
  sort of like uh i
• 56:21
  mean no man is a bridge but they're sort of like a bridge
• 56:23
  between an older mode of
• 56:26
  art collecting and connoisseurship and you know like what we
• 56:31
  think of as the birth
• 56:31
  SPEAKER_02: of modernism um but
• 56:38
  that's like the the fact that what is interesting to collectors
• 56:42
  becomes these
• 56:43
  prints is like reflective I think not just of what's coming out
• 56:46
  of Japan but also
• 56:46
  what's happening in Europe yeah and I think it complicates to
• 56:52
  the like orientalist
• 56:55
  SPEAKER_03: reading too which is yeah of looking to the east for something like
• 57:00
  of a different time or place when actually there's this
• 57:04
  innovation in printmaking
• 57:05
  SPEAKER_03: already afoot in Japan for a hundred years,
• 57:07
  SPEAKER_03: which is actually kind of anticipating what's happening in Paris.
• 57:12
  SPEAKER_02: I think that modernity is what's being embraced by the European market.
• 57:15
  SPEAKER_02: It's not like... It's not like primitivist.
• 57:19
  SPEAKER_03: It's actually aspirational.
• 57:21
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 57:22
  SPEAKER_03: Well,
• 57:23
  I think that the just to give the kind of like literal
• 57:26
  discovery story for Hokusai
• 57:28
  SPEAKER_03: or one of the discovery stories,
• 57:29
  SPEAKER_03: which I thought was really interesting was so in 1856,
• 57:32
  SPEAKER_03: the etcher,
• 57:33
  SPEAKER_03: the French etcher,
• 57:35
  SPEAKER_03: Félix Brachmond,
• 57:37
  SPEAKER_03: discovered Hokusai's manga at the shop.
• 57:39
  SPEAKER_02: You know, Félix Brachmond's work.
• 57:41
  SPEAKER_02: He's like a very famous illustrator.
• 57:43
  are you talking to me or the general you yes you mabel i just
• 57:47
  can't say it yeah
• 57:49
  yeah the lack the like lost in translation experience of me
• 57:53
  having to say french
• 57:54
  names and then you have to just say it with confidence so they
• 57:57
  were he was at the
• 57:58
  SPEAKER_03: shop of delatra um who i think was also famous um okay
• 58:05
  SPEAKER_03: Because he was,
• 58:07
  what I think is really interesting about this is that he was
• 58:10
  selling Japanese
• 58:11
  SPEAKER_03: porcelain,
• 58:12
  which had arrived in Paris in a crate where the packing
• 58:15
  material was ripped up
• 58:16
  SPEAKER_03: copies of Hokusai's manga.
• 58:18
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, cool.
• 58:20
  SPEAKER_03: And so Brahmand finds his own copy.
• 58:22
  SPEAKER_03: Like he figures out how to,
• 58:24
  he takes the scraps from the crate and then he gets his own
• 58:27
  copy and then starts
• 58:27
  SPEAKER_03: sharing it with other people in Paris,
• 58:29
  SPEAKER_03: including Manet.
• 58:29
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 58:31
  SPEAKER_03: And then he designs a set of tableware inspired by Hokusai.
• 58:35
  And then the prints continue to circulate in this like
• 58:38
  community of artists.
• 58:39
  And then it all kind of explodes at the Paris exposition in
• 58:42
  1867 when there's a
• 58:43
  SPEAKER_03: huge Japanese pavilion.
• 58:46
  And then that's like fueling this fire that ends up leading
• 58:51
  Goncourt to write the
• 58:52
  SPEAKER_03: book about Hokusai.
• 58:53
  SPEAKER_03: But what's also interesting about this is that like
• 58:58
  people also see hokusai is producing kind of like the like
• 59:05
  hackneyed kind of like
• 59:07
  lesser example of the floating world style and so the kind of
• 59:13
  more like the
• 59:14
  player's player of this floating world um the dancer's dancer i
• 59:19
  don't know the
• 59:20
  SPEAKER_03: artist whatever
• 59:21
  SPEAKER_03: The printmaker's printmaker.
• 59:22
  SPEAKER_03: The printmaker's printmaker of this genre is Hiroshige,
• 59:29
  SPEAKER_03: who is kind of a more respected,
• 59:33
  SPEAKER_03: I would say,
• 59:34
  artist in this tradition and whose work is considered to be
• 59:37
  like more poetic and
• 59:38
  SPEAKER_03: subtle.
• 59:39
  And this quote from a 1980 publication I was reading from the
• 59:44
  Met by Howard Hibbard
• 59:45
  was writing like his prints rather than those of the more
• 59:47
  spectacular hokusai
• 59:49
  SPEAKER_03: symbolized Japan to the Japanese.
• 59:53
  and it's like doesn't surprise me that the kind of more
• 59:57
  spectacular hokusai work is
• 59:59
  what was like latched on to by europe you're never subtle never
• 1:00:04
  subtle and i don't
• 1:00:06
  know i just like we should i just like liked thinking about the
• 1:00:11
  great wave is kind
• 1:00:11
  SPEAKER_03: of like
• 1:00:13
  this image which is so iconic to me and like I remember like
• 1:00:17
  really liking it as a
• 1:00:17
  kid and it's funny to return to it and think of it as an
• 1:00:21
  artifact of the 19th
• 1:00:22
  century and I was just yeah I guess I didn't really ever like
• 1:00:27
  connect specifically
• 1:00:29
  SPEAKER_02: the wave with the 19th century
• 1:00:35
  SPEAKER_03: And you didn't think at all.
• 1:00:41
  And also like I just I do think like when I'd mentioned this
• 1:00:45
  Howard Hibbard like
• 1:00:46
  SPEAKER_03: huge it's like clearly a book that my mom owned in the 80s.
• 1:00:52
  It's like an 800 page tome about the Mets collection and I was
• 1:00:56
  struck by the table
• 1:00:57
  SPEAKER_03: of contents and the structure of the book which is like
• 1:01:00
  SPEAKER_03: it's ancient Greece and then it's like Renaissance.
• 1:01:05
  SPEAKER_03: And then it is the 19th century.
• 1:01:08
  SPEAKER_03: And then it's the far East,
• 1:01:11
  SPEAKER_03: which is like,
• 1:01:12
  SPEAKER_03: I was thinking about,
• 1:01:14
  I want to look at other books that I have from that time where
• 1:01:18
  like the 19th
• 1:01:19
  SPEAKER_03: century,
• 1:01:19
  SPEAKER_03: I love when people have lists of things that are not equal.
• 1:01:22
  Like it's like apples and oranges,
• 1:01:23
  like the 19th century,
• 1:01:25
  the far East,
• 1:01:26
  ancient Greece.
• 1:01:27
  SPEAKER_03: Like those are all mixing up place and time.
• 1:01:29
  time in this crazy way that Borges story about that Foucault
• 1:01:34
  references about the
• 1:01:35
  library that's organized like by sort of concept in a way
• 1:01:41
  that's like only logical
• 1:01:42
  to the person who organized it totally it's just crazy and then
• 1:01:48
  you know like
• 1:01:49
  Madeline and I went to the same grad program which has its own
• 1:01:52
  textbook which I
• 1:01:54
  SPEAKER_03: think is like a well-organized
• 1:01:57
  document that attempts to summarize all of the history of
• 1:02:01
  decorative arts and it is
• 1:02:02
  like organized by in chronological order and then divided up
• 1:02:07
  into place but I'm
• 1:02:09
  like there's such even that like I always find navigating that
• 1:02:12
  book which I
• 1:02:13
  reference it sometimes just like get a basic fact about
• 1:02:15
  something and I'm I always
• 1:02:17
  struggle to find where something is because you're like jumping
• 1:02:19
  from place to place
• 1:02:21
  SPEAKER_03: within time to time
• 1:02:22
  yeah but i think this like to the point that we're sort of
• 1:02:25
  making about this the
• 1:02:29
  non-linear like directions of these ideas and technologies and
• 1:02:34
  like the idea of
• 1:02:35
  like the progress of modern art or whatever being completely
• 1:02:39
  fake it's like
• 1:02:42
  SPEAKER_02: The reason that that's hard is because things were going back and forth.
• 1:02:48
  I was teaching this past semester for Ned Cook,
• 1:02:52
  who wrote also like a global deck arts textbook.
• 1:02:55
  SPEAKER_02: And,
• 1:02:57
  SPEAKER_02: you know,
• 1:02:57
  SPEAKER_02: like part of the challenge of the class,
• 1:02:59
  SPEAKER_02: but also like his point is that you can't really be like,
• 1:03:03
  SPEAKER_02: this is from this place in this time and like,
• 1:03:05
  SPEAKER_02: There is no pure Japanese art versus European-Japanese-influenced art.
• 1:03:13
  SPEAKER_02: It's all a process and project of exchange.
• 1:03:18
  SPEAKER_02: There are Japanese screens from...
• 1:03:22
  17th century i think maybe even earlier that depict portuguese
• 1:03:26
  traders coming and
• 1:03:27
  like you know yeah there's and they're making things for a
• 1:03:31
  western market even if
• 1:03:32
  before they the ito period you know they weren't doing that
• 1:03:37
  kind of trade although
• 1:03:38
  i think they still were they're making things for a western
• 1:03:41
  market like long before
• 1:03:42
  SPEAKER_02: that
• 1:03:43
  yeah well it reminds me of like one of the best things i did in
• 1:03:47
  grad school which
• 1:03:47
  was i was on a field trip to the met and my professor took us
• 1:03:51
  on a tour of the
• 1:03:53
  entire museum only looking at one type of technique which is
• 1:03:56
  lusterware ceramics
• 1:03:57
  and you can go to the islamic wing you can go the american wing
• 1:04:00
  you can go to
• 1:04:01
  european sculpture decorative arts you can go pretty much
• 1:04:03
  everywhere in the entire
• 1:04:04
  museum and look at this one technique which all started from
• 1:04:07
  like one place and
• 1:04:09
  and spread throughout the world in all these like interesting
• 1:04:12
  ways um yeah and i
• 1:04:14
  love thinking i often want to do come up with my own version of
• 1:04:17
  that like with
• 1:04:18
  other types of material like how could you use one material to
• 1:04:22
  go through the
• 1:04:22
  entire collection and like what would it mean to rearrange the
• 1:04:25
  met based off of
• 1:04:26
  SPEAKER_03: material instead of place which it kind of vaguely is you know
• 1:04:31
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah,
• 1:04:32
  SPEAKER_02: I think like Japanning,
• 1:04:35
  SPEAKER_02: which is,
• 1:04:36
  SPEAKER_02: why am I forgetting the name of the actual thing that it is?
• 1:04:39
  SPEAKER_02: It's not Lester, it is...
• 1:04:47
  SPEAKER_01: Lacquer wear.
• 1:04:47
  SPEAKER_02: Lacquer.
• 1:04:48
  SPEAKER_02: Cracker.
• 1:04:49
  SPEAKER_02: Crack-a-lack-a.
• 1:04:54
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah,
• 1:04:54
  SPEAKER_02: lacquer wear is a good example of that,
• 1:04:56
  SPEAKER_02: which it does originate in Japan,
• 1:04:57
  SPEAKER_02: but then is exported to Europe.
• 1:05:00
  SPEAKER_02: Europe imitates it.
• 1:05:02
  SPEAKER_02: They don't have the same, one, they don't have the same plant life.
• 1:05:05
  SPEAKER_02: It's from trees, but also they don't have the same climate.
• 1:05:09
  SPEAKER_02: Hmm.
• 1:05:09
  So I think in England it's copied basically by using also like
• 1:05:13
  a coal byproduct
• 1:05:14
  coal tar to blacken things and then like lacquered with like an
• 1:05:18
  animal bone resin
• 1:05:19
  SPEAKER_02: basically.
• 1:05:22
  But then also there are similar techniques that exist in the
• 1:05:25
  new world when they're
• 1:05:26
  SPEAKER_02: doing colonization and
• 1:05:30
  SPEAKER_02: There's a thing where,
• 1:05:31
  SPEAKER_02: I think it's in Colombia,
• 1:05:32
  SPEAKER_02: where they chew out tree gum and then spread it,
• 1:05:36
  SPEAKER_02: dye it and spread it,
• 1:05:38
  SPEAKER_02: that looks similar.
• 1:05:39
  But they're pursuing this look of lacquerware,
• 1:05:42
  which has been happening in Japan forever.
• 1:05:44
  SPEAKER_03: Well,
• 1:05:45
  SPEAKER_03: that,
• 1:05:45
  SPEAKER_03: the lacquer story obviously reminds me of like the most,
• 1:05:48
  SPEAKER_03: I would,
• 1:05:49
  SPEAKER_03: I don't know,
• 1:05:49
  SPEAKER_03: maybe because of our decorative arts background,
• 1:05:51
  SPEAKER_03: I kind of,
• 1:05:52
  SPEAKER_03: in my mind,
• 1:05:52
  SPEAKER_03: this is sort of like the Rosetta stone of all the world,
• 1:05:55
  SPEAKER_03: which is like the pursuit of porcelain.
• 1:05:57
  Like the way that Europeans spent hundreds of years trying to
• 1:06:03
  recreate the purity
• 1:06:05
  SPEAKER_03: of porcelain with different materials.
• 1:06:08
  SPEAKER_03: Like you can write, you can write, you know,
• 1:06:11
  millions of pages about that pursuit and like everything is
• 1:06:15
  about that like
• 1:06:16
  everyone trying to do what they were doing in Asia yeah but
• 1:06:20
  being unable to but
• 1:06:21
  kind of being able to in the way that that like dovetails with
• 1:06:24
  the commercialism oh
• 1:06:25
  SPEAKER_03: yeah what's his face
• 1:06:29
  SPEAKER_01: Wedgwood?
• 1:06:29
  SPEAKER_03: Yep.
• 1:06:31
  SPEAKER_02: Yep.
• 1:06:32
  SPEAKER_02: Your recall is better than mine tonight.
• 1:06:35
  Well,
• 1:06:35
  the other sort of interesting part of that in terms of Japan is
• 1:06:39
  what was popular.
• 1:06:41
  So lacquerware stuff had been exported and was popular in
• 1:06:44
  England and France for a
• 1:06:47
  SPEAKER_02: long time before,
• 1:06:48
  SPEAKER_02: since the Dutch East India Company type time.
• 1:06:51
  SPEAKER_02: Type time.
• 1:06:53
  type time but like japanese ceramics which are have always been
• 1:06:58
  like kind of the
• 1:06:59
  wabi-sabi thing and like japanese tea ceremonies like it's
• 1:07:02
  always mismatched tea
• 1:07:03
  sets and like all there you know there's great value placed on
• 1:07:07
  things that have
• 1:07:07
  been used by a lot of people over a lot of time so they're like
• 1:07:11
  things that are
• 1:07:11
  worn and weathered and like made you know like show the
• 1:07:15
  material and show the
• 1:07:16
  SPEAKER_02: making and all of these things that were not valued by europeans
• 1:07:19
  SPEAKER_02: So like that,
• 1:07:20
  SPEAKER_02: for whatever reason,
• 1:07:21
  like doesn't really become something that Americans have or the
• 1:07:27
  Western world has
• 1:07:28
  SPEAKER_02: an interest in until,
• 1:07:30
  SPEAKER_02: you know,
• 1:07:30
  SPEAKER_02: like much later,
• 1:07:32
  SPEAKER_02: like the 20th century when studio ceramic kind of become popular.
• 1:07:36
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah,
• 1:07:37
  the way that the trends of the time color what is considered to
• 1:07:41
  be the like main
• 1:07:42
  SPEAKER_02: export of the country.
• 1:07:44
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, like that shifts all the time, as you're saying.
• 1:07:47
  yeah which is interesting and i think what's cool to me about
• 1:07:51
  the great wave is
• 1:07:53
  these different the history of the work itself and then the
• 1:07:57
  history of its
• 1:07:57
  reception like the sweat certification of the artwork now
• 1:08:02
  versus the way that it
• 1:08:03
  was once considered to be kind of like the the fire that like
• 1:08:07
  you know that started
• 1:08:09
  impressionism or whatever it is like the high low of that too
• 1:08:12
  like how something
• 1:08:13
  SPEAKER_03: goes from being like
• 1:08:14
  SPEAKER_03: low art to high art to low art to kitsch.
• 1:08:19
  SPEAKER_02: I'm like, what else is on sweatshirts?
• 1:08:21
  SPEAKER_02: Like Van Gogh's sunflowers?
• 1:08:23
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, it's impressionism.
• 1:08:25
  Like,
• 1:08:25
  that's also what's super interesting to me about,
• 1:08:27
  like,
• 1:08:28
  what are the masterpieces?
• 1:08:30
  SPEAKER_03: Like, I don't know.
• 1:08:31
  It was just like a part of the 19th century that is so
• 1:08:34
  prevalent and probably the
• 1:08:35
  SPEAKER_03: most famous part of the 19th century.
• 1:08:37
  SPEAKER_03: And we never think about it, obviously.
• 1:08:39
  But I do think about what is on the sweatshirts at the museum
• 1:08:42
  where I work.
• 1:08:42
  SPEAKER_03: And it is Van Gogh and it is Hokusai.
• 1:08:47
  that's what people know but nobody really wants to wear a
• 1:08:49
  sweatshirt of like
• 1:08:50
  Tiepolo or like 18th century stuff people don't and like a
• 1:08:57
  sweatshirt of like an
• 1:08:58
  ancient Egyptian object is like in my mind a bit weird like
• 1:09:02
  that works better as
• 1:09:04
  like a stuffed animal you know I don't know I guess it's also
• 1:09:07
  like I think people
• 1:09:08
  SPEAKER_02: look at impressionism and are like that's the oldest painting
• 1:09:14
  SPEAKER_03: But they're also still like, what is this garbage?
• 1:09:18
  SPEAKER_03: Like this isn't art.
• 1:09:19
  SPEAKER_03: I could do that too.
• 1:09:20
  SPEAKER_03: So it's like it's radicalism remains.
• 1:09:24
  SPEAKER_02: I don't know what's wrong with everyone.
• 1:09:26
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 1:09:26
  SPEAKER_03: I think it actually like really depresses me.
• 1:09:29
  SPEAKER_03: What is the most famous 19th century stuff in the world?
• 1:09:34
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 1:09:34
  SPEAKER_02: I mean,
• 1:09:34
  SPEAKER_03: cause it's also like,
• 1:09:36
  SPEAKER_03: also,
• 1:09:36
  SPEAKER_03: even though you're an art history student and I work in a museum,
• 1:09:39
  SPEAKER_03: I actually like kind of,
• 1:09:41
  SPEAKER_03: we're so,
• 1:09:41
  SPEAKER_03: I'm so focused.
• 1:09:42
  I feel like on like how people perceive 19th century literature
• 1:09:45
  that I kind of
• 1:09:45
  SPEAKER_03: forget about how people perceive 19th century art.
• 1:09:48
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, I just spent the last year like of my life only reading about it.
• 1:09:52
  SPEAKER_02: So I feel,
• 1:09:54
  uniquely poised but what about like the way regular people
• 1:09:58
  perceive i don't know
• 1:09:59
  what regular people that's what i'm talking i'm talking about
• 1:10:01
  like mainstream i
• 1:10:03
  mean we did a book fair a couple weeks ago where someone asked
• 1:10:06
  us if our book would
• 1:10:07
  be legible to them because they thought it would be like in
• 1:10:10
  like old english well
• 1:10:13
  SPEAKER_03: someone also didn't someone else ask us another insane question like that
• 1:10:18
  SPEAKER_02: They asked us if it would be hard to read.
• 1:10:20
  SPEAKER_02: They were like, I don't really read a lot.
• 1:10:22
  SPEAKER_02: Will it be hard to read?
• 1:10:24
  SPEAKER_02: And I said no.
• 1:10:24
  SPEAKER_02: And then Mabel said, yeah, probably will.
• 1:10:26
  SPEAKER_02: I'm like, you don't look like you could read it.
• 1:10:32
  SPEAKER_03: I don't know.
• 1:10:32
  SPEAKER_03: I think also,
• 1:10:33
  SPEAKER_03: as people may or may not know,
• 1:10:35
  SPEAKER_03: we are starting to do second episodes for this podcast.
• 1:10:39
  SPEAKER_03: And we're trying to start talking about...
• 1:10:40
  I think ultimately the theme of the second episode of
• 1:10:43
  1-800-1800 a month is
• 1:10:44
  SPEAKER_03: about...
• 1:10:46
  other interpretations of the 19th century like we did an
• 1:10:50
  episode on Frankenstein we
• 1:10:52
  are planning to do an episode on like other 19th century
• 1:10:55
  adaptations and historical
• 1:10:57
  fiction whatever and I think that would be a good place for us
• 1:11:01
  to continue kind of
• 1:11:02
  wrestling with like how do how is the mainstream Hollywood
• 1:11:07
  thinking through the
• 1:11:09
  SPEAKER_03: past and how is that different from or similar to what we're doing
• 1:11:13
  SPEAKER_02: But also like it's interesting,
• 1:11:14
  SPEAKER_02: like this is such a famous work artwork,
• 1:11:16
  like what other artwork that's on sweatshirts do I know nothing
• 1:11:20
  about the person
• 1:11:20
  SPEAKER_02: who made it?
• 1:11:21
  SPEAKER_03: Well,
• 1:11:21
  SPEAKER_03: yeah,
• 1:11:21
  SPEAKER_03: I mean,
• 1:11:22
  SPEAKER_03: I think that the elephant in the room here,
• 1:11:23
  SPEAKER_03: too,
• 1:11:24
  SPEAKER_03: is like the and this is what I was trying to think about,
• 1:11:26
  SPEAKER_03: too,
• 1:11:26
  before is like how in this book there's a chapter on the 19th
• 1:11:29
  century and then
• 1:11:29
  SPEAKER_03: there's a chapter on the far,
• 1:11:31
  SPEAKER_03: quote,
• 1:11:31
  SPEAKER_03: far east.
• 1:11:33
  SPEAKER_03: It's like, what do I leave out of my story of the 19th century?
• 1:11:36
  SPEAKER_03: Because it's non-Western.
• 1:11:38
  SPEAKER_02: Well,
• 1:11:38
  we've had this conversation before where this concept of the
• 1:11:41
  long 19th century is
• 1:11:43
  SPEAKER_02: such a Western framing,
• 1:11:44
  and so we kind of have to forgive ourselves for not always
• 1:11:48
  bringing in this type of
• 1:11:49
  SPEAKER_02: thing,
• 1:11:49
  SPEAKER_02: although obviously it is hugely influential and important.
• 1:11:52
  SPEAKER_02: But it's a time frame that's irrelevant to talking about Japan,
• 1:11:56
  where it's much more significant to talk about Japanese art and
• 1:12:00
  Japanese culture in
• 1:12:01
  SPEAKER_02: terms of the empires.
• 1:12:04
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, like I'm talking about the Edo period.
• 1:12:08
  SPEAKER_03: 300 years.
• 1:12:09
  SPEAKER_03: It's 1615 to 1867.
• 1:12:12
  SPEAKER_03: It's a very different framing.
• 1:12:14
  SPEAKER_03: Well,
• 1:12:14
  and also obviously we are an Anglo-American project because we
• 1:12:20
  don't currently do
• 1:12:21
  SPEAKER_03: translated work.
• 1:12:23
  SPEAKER_03: And even excludes France, which we talk about all the time.
• 1:12:26
  SPEAKER_03: But that means we're really not telling a story of the world.
• 1:12:30
  SPEAKER_03: We're talking about a very particular moment in a very particular place.
• 1:12:34
  SPEAKER_02: No,
• 1:12:34
  and you don't really get like artists talking about going to
• 1:12:37
  Japan until like the
• 1:12:40
  SPEAKER_02: 1880s,
• 1:12:40
  SPEAKER_02: 1870s,
• 1:12:41
  SPEAKER_02: 1880s.
• 1:12:41
  SPEAKER_03: Well,
• 1:12:41
  I like recommend to anyone this biography of Isabel Stewart
• 1:12:45
  Gardner to read about
• 1:12:46
  SPEAKER_03: her trip in Japan,
• 1:12:47
  SPEAKER_03: which is just like it is insane to me.
• 1:12:49
  I think it's in the 1880s that she goes and it's just like
• 1:12:53
  miraculous that anyone went so far.
• 1:12:56
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 1:12:57
  SPEAKER_03: And was able to travel so freely.
• 1:12:59
  SPEAKER_03: It's amazing.
• 1:13:00
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, it must have taken like a year to get there.
• 1:13:02
  SPEAKER_03: They were gone for three years.
• 1:13:03
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 1:13:04
  I mean,
• 1:13:04
  they went all over Asia,
• 1:13:05
  but still they were gone for three years.
• 1:13:08
  SPEAKER_03: Like her entire family died while she was gone.
• 1:13:11
  SPEAKER_03: That's another crazy.
• 1:13:12
  SPEAKER_02: That used to happen.
• 1:13:14
  SPEAKER_02: And you might not know until you got home.
• 1:13:16
  SPEAKER_03: Well,
• 1:13:17
  SPEAKER_03: my grandpa,
• 1:13:17
  SPEAKER_03: when he was in a prisoner of war camp during World War II,
• 1:13:20
  SPEAKER_03: his brother died back in the States.
• 1:13:25
  SPEAKER_03: So that was happening pretty recently.
• 1:13:27
  SPEAKER_03: It's a sort of different situation.
• 1:13:30
  SPEAKER_03: It's a little different, but time used to pass differently.
• 1:13:34
  SPEAKER_03: In conclusion.
• 1:13:36
  SPEAKER_03: And I feel like I,
• 1:13:37
  SPEAKER_03: to anyone who's still listening to this episode,
• 1:13:40
  SPEAKER_03: obviously I'm not an expert in Japanese art history in Japan at all,
• 1:13:44
  but I did enjoy challenging myself to talk about something
• 1:13:48
  outside of the normal
• 1:13:49
  SPEAKER_03: purview of our podcast.
• 1:13:52
  SPEAKER_03: And I think the podcast,
• 1:13:53
  SPEAKER_03: especially because of the limitations of the press,
• 1:13:56
  I think the podcast can be an exciting venue for us to think
• 1:13:58
  about complicating the
• 1:13:59
  SPEAKER_03: history of the long quote long 19th century.
• 1:14:02
  think so too and in 2026 this year i strive to do it more and i
• 1:14:08
  hope you guys will
• 1:14:09
  enjoy that's a resolution that my friends is a resolution you
• 1:14:12
  heard it here um so
• 1:14:15
  thank you for listening and thank you for sharing mabel don't
• 1:14:19
  hesitate to reach out
• 1:14:20
  with questions comments or concerns and hey give us a five star
• 1:14:23
  rating would you oh
• 1:14:24
  SPEAKER_03: my god please please all right love you guys love you
• 1:14:32
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• 1:14:38
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