The Artist

Today's tour will show you artwork from an unlikely painter, and show just how fragile key moments in history really are.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:04):
Welcome to Aaron Menkey's Cabinet of Curiosities, a production of
I Heart Radio and Grim and Mild. Our world is
full of the unexplainable, and if history is an open book,
all of these amazing tales are right there on display,
just waiting for us to explore. Welcome to the Cabinet

(00:27):
of Curiosities. Museums all over the world are home to
the finest works of arts ever created. New York City's
Museum of Modern Art houses pieces by Andy Warhol, Claude Monet,
and Jackson Pollock, as well as Vincent van Gogh's iconic

(00:49):
painting Starry Night. The Louve in Paris houses the Mona
Lisa by Leonardo da Vinci her rye Smile greeting each
guest who passes by. Such works in vite speculation as
to what the artist was thinking when they made it,
What is it telling us? What does it say about
the world at large? Art is subjective, often up to
all kinds of interpretation. Some pieces, however, transcend simple questions

(01:14):
about intent and meaning. They are made with the same
kind of skill other artists only dream of. These works
don't only invite interpretation, they demand it. Such were the
paintings of Pierre Brissa. Brissau exploded onto the Swedish art
scene in nineteen sixty four. His first exhibition was held
in gerta Borga, Sweden, and the critics loved him. Ralph Anderberg,

(01:37):
art critic for the local paper, said, Brisseau paints with
powerful strokes, but also with clear determination, and then he
added that he performed with the delicacy of a ballet dancer.
Brisseau had been discovered by Daca Axelsson, who insisted he
share his paintings with the rest of the world. Axelson
had been invited into the artist studio weeks earlier, where

(01:58):
he selected four of the painters finest pieces and had
them put up in the gallery. Brassau's paintings took the
medium to a whole new level at a time when
abstract art was gaining in popularity across Sweden. A private
collector immediately bought one of his paintings for ninety dollars,
which would equal about seven hundred dollars today. Sadly, Brassau's

(02:18):
work was not long for this world. He stopped painting
after his first show, most likely brought on by one
critics scathing review the following day. It read only an
ape could have done this. Now. Other artists might have
shrugged off such an unpleasant sentiment, but not Brazow, probably
because the critic wasn't wrong. Pierre Braza was no artist.

(02:41):
He was a chimpanzee. His real name was Peter. Pierre
Brazou was the pseudonym that Axelsson used when he submitted
his paintings to the gallery. Axelsson had actually been a
journalist who wanted to test the credibility of art critics
at the time. Did they really know what they were
talking about or were they full of it? He believed
most critics were snobs who couldn't necessarily tell the difference

(03:03):
between good art and bad. Well, their real test was
about to begin. Axelsson traveled to a zoo in northern
Sweden looking for his perfect painter, and that's when he
found Peter, a four year old West African chimpanzee. With
the zookeeper's permission, Axelson presented Peter with some oil paints,
which he took to immediately, just not in the way
everyone expected Peter ate them. Cobalt blue seemed to be

(03:27):
the most delicious he loved it so much he used
it in most of his paintings. Once he got tired
of eating his materials, he would put his brush to
the canvas. It also helped that they always had a
basket of bananas nearby while he painted, keeping him distracted
from swallowing another mouthful of blue. At his hungriest, he
would eat up to nine bananas in ten minutes. After

(03:48):
Peter completed a bunch of paintings, Axelson took the four
he thought were best and sent them to the gallery
to be displayed. The trap had been set and almost
everyone had fallen for it. Ralph Edinburgh didn't seem bothered
by the Hoaxes reveal. In the end, he stood by
his original statement, claiming Peter's painting had still been the
best in the exhibition. Peter left Sweden a few years later,

(04:12):
living out the rest of his days at the Chester
Zoo in England. He might not have gone on to
great fame and fortune, but Peter had done something even better.
He turned the tables on a bunch of stuffy art
critics and made a monkey out of all of them.

(04:39):
In August of eighteen sixty two, Confederate General Robert E.
Lee had just come off to victorious campaigns at Manassas, Virginia,
otherwise known as Bull Run. The Union's defeats had been swift,
as Lee had a reputation for striking fast. The South
was poised to win the war. Panicked and demoralized, the
Union prepared for the eventual overtaking a Washington d c.

(05:01):
A steamership even stood by, ready to evacuate President Lincoln
if necessary. The South, meanwhile, rejoiced with the news. With
such a strong victory, citizens demanded that their troops moved
farther into Union territory. Lee felt that one more win
over the Union troops would not only prove superior military strength,
but might also affect the upcoming congressional elections. Lee had

(05:25):
just the target to the Potomac by way of the
Shannon Doah Valley. With skilled veteran generals in his ranks,
Lee planned to send troops to destroy Pennsylvania's railroad bridge,
cutting off the supply route to Washington. Stonewall Jackson was
set to command a raid on Harper's ferry, while Lee
and his troops were to march into Haggerstown. Generally wrote

(05:46):
Special Orders one on September nine, eighteen sixty two and
sent copies to his commanders. After reading his copy of
the orders, James Longstreet destroyed it by chewing the paper tobacco.
John Walker kept his pin to the inside of his jacket.
Stonewall Jackson burned his orders after carefully memorizing the words

(06:09):
everyone was ready and the secret was safe. There was
a fourth general, though both Lee and Jackson believed that
General Daniel Harvey Hill was under their command. Hill was
Jackson's brother in law, after all. In the mix up,
both Lee and Jackson sent a copy of the orders
to Hill. One of Hill's copies ended up in Union

(06:30):
commander George McClellan's hands. The lost orders were the start
of a domino effect that eventually helped the Union win
the war. With advanced knowledge of Lee's intentions, the Battle
of Antietam had a much different outlook, and as history
now shows, the Union troops prevailed. Those railway bridges remained intact,
and Lee was forced to retreat out of the north.

(06:50):
With Maryland siding with the Union, Washington was no longer
under threat. States who had held back soldiers to defend themselves,
now provided the Union with extra men. The Republicans were
even victorious at the polls. The victory gave more meaning
to President Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation. Without the victory, that proclamation
might have come off sounding empty. In turn, the proclamation

(07:13):
convinced public opinion abroad to stand with the North and
its fights against slavery. But here's the best part. That
letter hadn't found its way into McClellan's hands by way
of a spy or a trader. In a strange turn
of events, Union Commander George McClellan's troops had set up
camp in Frederick, just four days after Confederate General Daniel

(07:33):
Harvey Hill and his men had stayed in the exact
same location. Early on the morning of septem Private Barton
Mitchell took a break after stacking arms with the rest
of the troops. He noticed something unusual on the ground,
a bulky package. Mitchell noted that it had already been opened,
and so he took a look inside. What he discovered

(07:54):
was a note wrapped around three cigars, presumably the kind
Daniel Harvey Hill carried. Seeing the plans, he immediately handed
over the envelope and the contents to his sergeants. By
that morning, McClellan had possession of the package and had
already wired Lincoln. Lee blamed his defeat on those lost orders.
His assistant General R. H. Chilton signed an affid David

(08:17):
stating that the order had been delivered, suggesting that Hill
had wrapped his cigars with the plans and then carelessly
lost them. But Hill insisted that the only copy he
had ever received had been from Jackson, not Lee. One
hole in Hill's explanation is that Private Mitchell found the
envelope opened, which indicates that someone had already read the orders.

(08:38):
Such orders were usually delivered sealed. Since Chilton could no
longer recall the courier's name, no one could question them.
Hill contended that the courier must have lost the package
after arriving at Frederick, between the time he'd left and
the Union troops arrived. The second hole in his theory
how three cigars came to be wrapped in the battle plans,

(08:58):
courier or care listeness. Whichever theory you believe, one thing
is certainly true that day in Frederick, Lee's battle plans
and the Confederate momentum in the Civil War all went
up in smoke. I hope you've enjoyed today's guided tour
of the Cabinet of Curiosities. Subscribe for free on Apple Podcasts,

(09:22):
or learn more about the show by visiting Curiosities podcast
dot com. The show was created by me Aaron Manky
in partnership with how Stuff Works. I make another award
winning show called Lore, which is a podcast, book series,
and television show, and you can learn all about it
over at the World of Lore dot com. And until

(09:43):
next time, stay curious.