May 5, 2023 • 21 mins
Holly and Tracy discuss the commercial nature of Canaletto's work. They also talk about how Lully managed to achieve his many ambitions.
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to Stuff you missed in History Class, A production
of iHeartRadio, Hello and Happy Friday and Holly Frye and
I'm Tracy V.
Speaker 2 (00:15):
Wilson.
Speaker 1 (00:16):
So we talked about Caneletto this week, which sometimes I
say with the heart tea and sometimes I get it.
Speaker 2 (00:23):
I let it be a little softer.
Speaker 1 (00:25):
I did it both ways in the show on purpose,
so nobody feels like they have to do it one
way or the other. He is such an interesting figure
to me because the whole thing I kept thinking while
reading his story, particularly how his his career. I mean,
even though his paintings are exquisite, in my opinion, his
(00:47):
career was considered such commercial art.
Speaker 2 (00:50):
Uh huh.
Speaker 1 (00:50):
That I'm like, is this like if one day, one
hundred years or more from now, someone is going to
find the work of like a beach Town air Rush
painter and be like, this was truly the greatest painter
of that age.
Speaker 2 (01:05):
I was.
Speaker 1 (01:06):
I had the same mental conversation, but with one specific artist.
And I'm afraid if I say who it is, people
are going to come for me with the pitchforks. Okay,
don't say it, but do tell me later. I'm gonna
say it anyway Thomas Kinkaid. Oh, Like, I am not
suggesting that their like artistic work is similar, but the
(01:26):
like the commercial nature of it, and how much focus
there was on light and shadow, and some of the
criticism about how much of it there was and how
some of it was similar to other of it, Like,
there was a lot of that that I was like,
this reminds me of things that people have said about
Thomas Kinkaid's understand that association. I even googled at one
(01:48):
point Caniletto Thomas Kinkaid comparison question mark.
Speaker 2 (01:52):
I'd found no results that I remember. Oh I love it.
Speaker 1 (01:56):
Yeah, I mean it does make me consider would I'm
sure he would have. Would Caneletto, had he been alive
in the modern era, been like, yes, let's sell prints, Yes,
let's absolutely make wallpaper out of my work. Yes, let's
absolutely Like I think probably.
Speaker 2 (02:16):
Yeah, let's for sure trademark the term painter of light.
Speaker 1 (02:19):
Right, because I mean he really was if he was
churning out like multiple canvas bases at a time that
were basically the same scene and then being like, oh,
when somebody orders a view of the scene, I'll just
paint in the the you know, celebration or the you
know Day of Flowers or whatever.
Speaker 2 (02:36):
That they want.
Speaker 1 (02:37):
Great, I mean, he was not afraid of money. It's
interesting though. We talked at the end about that idea
that he had no serious rivals, and we mentioned in
the episode that there was another painter named Mary Eski
who came along in the early seventeen forties and people
(02:58):
were like, ooh, competition. I didn't find it until much
later in a footnote that like, even if he was
any competition, it was not for long, because Mariski died
in seventeen forty three, so he would not have really
caused any big stir Yeah, very long. In this episode,
(03:19):
I was really captivated by the idea. I'm sure there
are still people who do this. It is not something
that has ever been within my means or wall space,
but the idea that people would go to travel to
Venice and as a souvenir commission a big landscape painting.
(03:39):
I was very intrigued by that whole idea. You and
I have been on trips together before, where like I've
seen you by multiple pieces of artwork, but like never
something of the scale that Caneletto was often doing. Yeah,
I'm trying to think of a comparison. I know that
(04:00):
once when we were in New Orleans, I bought a
big piece of art and had it shipped because that
was not going to make it onto a flight. No
it was not, I remember, but it wasn't quite as big.
And then later I went back to the same gallery
some less than a year later, and the companion piece too,
it was still there and I had to buy that.
Speaker 2 (04:19):
So that oh so good.
Speaker 1 (04:21):
So yeah them both not landscapes, but in fact paintings
of the Bride and Frankenstein's Monster. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah,
which I love and they hang in my living room.
Speaker 2 (04:35):
Yeah, I love that idea. I'm like, yes, we should
absolutely start doing that.
Speaker 1 (04:39):
I have a little buying art problem. We have too
many pieces of art at this point, and I don't
know what we're going to do about it. But yeah,
you know, I like supporting artists. I like pretty things.
What Patrick had his his you know, a little portrait
done in montmart while we were there a couple back
(04:59):
before or the pandemic twenty nineteen, and I I like,
I think that's still rolled up in the tube.
Speaker 2 (05:07):
It was a moment.
Speaker 1 (05:09):
We have a lot of artwork in our house that
we need to like get framed and hang up. And
then also I think need to think about like how
to rotate pieces through because we have more art than
we can put on yes walls.
Speaker 2 (05:23):
It's very tricky.
Speaker 1 (05:25):
I will say this, and I this is a confession
of what a ding dong I can sometimes be. Even
when I know I am going to a museum that
has came littos or even two sea came littos, there's
always the moment where I first walk in the room
and from a distance go, oh, are they doing a
photography exhibit? Because from a brief distance they look so
(05:50):
real that it's happened to me more than once, so
that's so fun. And then I go, oh, no, this
is that room. Okay, great, great, great great great. It's
not like you know, the National Gallery normally has a big,
weird modern photography exhibit in the mid in the middle
of like one of its halls. But I always think
it for a second because my brain is not great.
(06:21):
I want to talk also briefly about Mcswhiney's idea of
having like three different painters work on one painting together
multiple paintings, each of which would have three different painters.
In my experience, artistic collaborations are pretty difficult, you know,
(06:44):
Like I have friends who are artists. I've worked on
stuff with people. Two people that are really like minded
can do that pretty easily. Three seems dangerous, especially when
it's a random collector, outside party selecting the artists. That
just seems like it would lead to a lot of Well,
my background looks perfect. I don't know what's going on
(07:05):
in that foreground, Like, I'm just it's a fascinating and
cool idea. Yeah, and there are some of those paintings
that exist and you can see them and they're very interesting.
But I just I marvel at like who was like,
you know what we need to do is make a
bunch of artists work together. That seems good. I'm like,
I know why this project didn't get finished. I know why,
(07:29):
aside from anybody not having you know, and whether there
was a conflict among them or not. Just like the
idea of deliverables being like, Okay, you have to have
your part done by this, and nobody else can work
until you do, Like that is a recipe for never finishing. Yeah, yeah, amazing, amazing.
(07:50):
I want to go back to the National Gallery and
spend more time there. But the problem is that when
you're traveling, your time is finite. Yeah, yeah, because you
could spend multiple days in any of.
Speaker 2 (08:03):
The great museums of the world.
Speaker 1 (08:05):
Sure can I just have like a sleepover week at
the Louver, But then, like, you're not seeing all the
other stuff in Paris, Yes, true of One of my
true regrets of our trip to Paris was that I
did not pre plan our Louve visit and like make
(08:25):
a list of what I really wanted to see to
prioritize those things, and.
Speaker 2 (08:31):
We saw a lot of great art.
Speaker 1 (08:34):
There was stuff I would have loved to see that
I didn't even realize was there until afterward. It was
like it's just so big and so overwhelming, and parts
of it are so incredibly crowded that like, if there
are things that are important to you, good to have
a plan ahead of time. I don't know if they're
still doing this, but when we were there, the audio
(08:56):
tour that you could get was on I don't remember
what handheld console, and it was incredibly cool.
Speaker 2 (09:02):
Getting that great plan.
Speaker 1 (09:03):
Not planning ahead for what we wanted to look at
not the best plan for us. I feel compelled to
mention that I did also see. The one painting I
was after at the National Gallery was vig Lebron's self portrait,
which is and as I said, mem a new friend
of ours. We met her in New York earlier this
(09:25):
year and it turned out she lives out just outside
of Cambridge and was like, hey, look me up when
you're in England, and I was like, okay, and we did,
and she was delightful. But she doesn't know me that well.
And she did get to see me start to cry in.
Speaker 2 (09:39):
Front of art because they were ugly crying.
Speaker 1 (09:43):
Every time every time.
Speaker 2 (09:47):
Cannot help it.
Speaker 1 (09:48):
I don't know what it is, don't even don't even
know what it is, just spectacularly beautiful.
Speaker 2 (09:55):
So good. We talked about Jean Baptiste Lulie.
Speaker 1 (10:11):
This week, yes, which I should say I did not
mean to do to theatrical slash opera. E connected things
one right on top of the other. Yeah. We have
kind of a brief run of episodes that are sort
of all about creative pursuits in.
Speaker 2 (10:30):
Some way, I'll call it that way.
Speaker 1 (10:32):
And it was just.
Speaker 2 (10:34):
Accidental alignment of things, right.
Speaker 1 (10:38):
Yes, in my case, we had canaletto who painted backdrops
for opera, and then of course who was completely ingrained
in that world so much that he owned it essentially. Yeah,
and then we have a forthcoming one that is not
recorded yet. Yes, make Way, make Way for Arts. I
(11:01):
have mentioned to you. I kind of said it at
the end of the episode, and I know we've talked
about it additionally that, like Lulie has this reputation for
being kind of a pain in the neck, But I
have to admire the fact that he did achieve all
of his ambitions. Yeah, he had things he set out
to do and he did them. Yeah, he wanted to
be a noble, he wanted to have money, and he
(11:24):
wanted to have name recognition, and he got all of
it in abundance. Seems like he was kind of manipulative
and ruthless.
Speaker 2 (11:32):
And doing it.
Speaker 1 (11:33):
But yeah, it's it's the ruthlessness I don't love.
Speaker 2 (11:38):
Yeah, that's not my favorite part of his story either.
Speaker 1 (11:44):
I cannot imagine. I keep trying to think of a
comparison one could possibly make to what it would be
like if one creative in any field, but we'll say music,
just to make it easy, suddenly became the only person
in their country allowed to make music without other people
(12:05):
paying them a fee.
Speaker 2 (12:06):
Yeah, when we were in.
Speaker 1 (12:09):
Paris back in like twenty nineteen, I think that's the
year we did that. We were on a walking tour
and I don't remember which like French cultural institution we
were standing in front of, but our guide was talking
about the like French theater being so locked down in
terms of what could be performed, and having lived my
(12:32):
whole life in the United States, that whole idea was
very foreign to me. Like it was just you know,
I I've always lived in a place where people like
you might have to license the play from the person
who wrote it, but like that people could do whatever
they wanted.
Speaker 2 (12:52):
You could write your own play just.
Speaker 1 (12:54):
Because like the theater wasn't going to have anything happening
one weekend and be like, all right, we're gonna just
write something so this theater won't be dark this weekend.
Speaker 2 (13:02):
Yeah, I mean right.
Speaker 1 (13:04):
So there's the way those rules worked. Like I imagine
a stream musician could still play, but as soon as
you have two musicians too many, and that there was
I didn't include it because there were a series of
pieces of legislation or royal decrease that basically kept reducing
(13:28):
that number down to the ones we mentioned, where like
it was like no, eight and then six and then two,
which to me just seems I mean at that point, like,
I'm like, ya, but what about parties where people.
Speaker 2 (13:43):
In public places? Do you know what I mean?
Speaker 1 (13:44):
I compare it to things like Ireland's pub tradition where
musicians just all show up together and play kind of spontaneously,
and I'm like, well, that wouldn't have been allowed. Utterly,
utterly fascinating. We did not mention in the episode, and
I meant to that I did not get into a
(14:08):
lot of the technical ways that Lulie changed music, Oh sure,
because I think I would have needed to take a
music theory class to really understand a lot of it.
Even in really basic write ups that I was reading,
I was like, I don't know what.
Speaker 2 (14:22):
These words mean.
Speaker 1 (14:23):
Yeah, and I am not, you know, entirely ignorant to
opera and music, but I still was like, this is
beyond me, and I didn't want to go down a
rabbit hole that was not so much about his life
but about a lot of technicalities. Yeah. I've had the
same basic reaction in some of the episodes that I've
researched before, even in fields that I do feel like
(14:45):
I have some education in, right, like my bachelor's degree
in literature, but looking at literature from especially not not
anywhere in Europe or North America, or sometimes places are
in Europe and North America, but with like a literary
tradition that's very different from what I learned. Sometimes I'm like,
(15:08):
I don't know what any of these literary styles are.
Speaker 2 (15:10):
I don't know what any of these tropes. I know
what none of this means.
Speaker 1 (15:13):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, because there's cultural stuff too. I mean,
I hope we captured enough of it just in talking
about how he approached finding ways to get French language
to be part of the operatic tradition, which to me
feels like the most important piece of it. Without getting
into the musical technicality. I also didn't want to do
(15:35):
that thing where I try to talk about a thing
I don't really know about it and I end up
making a bungle of it and giving people wrong information sure,
or making actual musically knowledgeable people cry, yeah you know
what that? I kept thinking in the midst of all
of this, sort of like Louise and Enfonteribe m about
(15:59):
the fact about two things. One the way his fortune
has never really been able to be properly assessed because
he did have money coming from many different revenue streams.
I only stumbled across the piece of information about him
(16:19):
being a landlord with you know, two buildings of flats
that he was collecting rent on pretty late in the game,
and I was like, what does this it talk about?
Speaker 2 (16:28):
Anywhere else that I saw.
Speaker 1 (16:29):
I'm sure it is somewhere, probably in a French language book,
but I didn't stumble across it until pretty late. And
even the counts of how many houses he had are
different from account to account. I kind of err on
the side of like the lower numbers just to not
accidentally overinflate, but like, he just had so many different
(16:50):
ways he was making money that I would not be
surprised if there was an entire revenue stream nobody has
actually really realized yet. The other thing, though, I think
an argument could be made. I'm not saying it's correct
or good, but an argument could be made that part
of Louie's kind of ruthlessness about really dictating what could
(17:14):
and could not be performed in France was in support
of King Louis the fourteenth effort to make artistic excellence
kind of the national identity of the country, right. I mean,
I don't know how much of that either would have
been the driver for Louie to be such a task
(17:36):
master with the people that worked under him, or if
he was naturally that way, and so that with the
King's desires fed into that really sort of very anal retentive.
No one can play unless I say so, because I
don't trust them. I mean, you can make the case
that it worked, because France does have that reputation to
(17:57):
this day.
Speaker 2 (17:58):
Sure, but.
Speaker 1 (18:02):
It's an interesting way to get it. You know, France
renowned for its music, ballet, m visual arts, everything, and
there was tons of scientific discovery happening. Then the death
by Cane. Poke's usually what people will say in passing
(18:25):
about him. He's kind of like a footnote y joke
at times.
Speaker 2 (18:29):
Yeah, but like.
Speaker 1 (18:31):
This follows on the heels of me saying there's a
lot of scientific discovery going on, you know, yes, but
also I don't know how comfortable the concept of amputation
would have been, even with the best doctors in the country. Yeah, yeah,
this this is We've had a couple of episodes recently
where somebody died from an infection and seems like probably
(18:55):
the treatment they got like was not great even given
the standards of the time, but also so like infections
were an incredibly common cause of death, So if he
had gotten that amputation, he still may have died from
like either the gangering issue or some other infection, even
if he had taken prompt action. It was just Yeah,
(19:16):
there were no antibiotics and a lot of people died
of pretty minor injuries for that reason. Yeah, I mean
that would have been just another big open wound, depending
on the nature of the stitch up had he gotten in.
And it's interesting because the thing about not being able
to dance anymore gets quoted a lot, but I could
(19:37):
see him saying that Morris an excuse, so he wouldn't
have to say I don't trust you. I also have
some questions about the pounding out the time on the
stage with a sharpened cane, Like was this audible to
people in the audience? I sure would hate that a lot,
and I've if it was audible to me. That was
(19:59):
a little fun because he was so exacting in terms
of what he wanted from the performers and I'm like,
but if you were also making it so the audience
had this relentless pounding happening during like that just does
not seem excellent to me. Yeah, I don't know. I
guess when it's all new, you get to make the rules.
(20:22):
Of course, opera has a metronomic sound that goes along
with it continually that you could accidentally puncture through your
foot with.
Speaker 2 (20:30):
That doesn't sound good at all.
Speaker 1 (20:34):
You know, it does sound good. Rest and relaxation. I
hope everybody listening gets some this weekend. If this is
not how your time lines up so that you have
a regular weekend like other people might, I hope you
still find some time to yourself to recharge and have
some quiet in your mind. If that is what helps
(20:55):
you recharge, or do you just find something that brings
you delight and joy. Nobody can tell you what to do,
make whatever art you want. Hopefully we will be right
back here tomorrow with a classic and on Monday with
a brand new episode. Stuff You Missed in History Class
(21:17):
is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio,
visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen
to your favorite shows,
Welcome to Stuff you missed in History Class, A production
of iHeartRadio, Hello and Happy Friday and Holly Frye and
I'm Tracy V.
Speaker 2 (00:15):
Wilson.
Speaker 1 (00:16):
So we talked about Caneletto this week, which sometimes I
say with the heart tea and sometimes I get it.
Speaker 2 (00:23):
I let it be a little softer.
Speaker 1 (00:25):
I did it both ways in the show on purpose,
so nobody feels like they have to do it one
way or the other. He is such an interesting figure
to me because the whole thing I kept thinking while
reading his story, particularly how his his career. I mean,
even though his paintings are exquisite, in my opinion, his
(00:47):
career was considered such commercial art.
Speaker 2 (00:50):
Uh huh.
Speaker 1 (00:50):
That I'm like, is this like if one day, one
hundred years or more from now, someone is going to
find the work of like a beach Town air Rush
painter and be like, this was truly the greatest painter
of that age.
Speaker 2 (01:05):
I was.
Speaker 1 (01:06):
I had the same mental conversation, but with one specific artist.
And I'm afraid if I say who it is, people
are going to come for me with the pitchforks. Okay,
don't say it, but do tell me later. I'm gonna
say it anyway Thomas Kinkaid. Oh, Like, I am not
suggesting that their like artistic work is similar, but the
(01:26):
like the commercial nature of it, and how much focus
there was on light and shadow, and some of the
criticism about how much of it there was and how
some of it was similar to other of it, Like,
there was a lot of that that I was like,
this reminds me of things that people have said about
Thomas Kinkaid's understand that association. I even googled at one
(01:48):
point Caniletto Thomas Kinkaid comparison question mark.
Speaker 2 (01:52):
I'd found no results that I remember. Oh I love it.
Speaker 1 (01:56):
Yeah, I mean it does make me consider would I'm
sure he would have. Would Caneletto, had he been alive
in the modern era, been like, yes, let's sell prints, Yes,
let's absolutely make wallpaper out of my work. Yes, let's
absolutely Like I think probably.
Speaker 2 (02:16):
Yeah, let's for sure trademark the term painter of light.
Speaker 1 (02:19):
Right, because I mean he really was if he was
churning out like multiple canvas bases at a time that
were basically the same scene and then being like, oh,
when somebody orders a view of the scene, I'll just
paint in the the you know, celebration or the you
know Day of Flowers or whatever.
Speaker 2 (02:36):
That they want.
Speaker 1 (02:37):
Great, I mean, he was not afraid of money. It's
interesting though. We talked at the end about that idea
that he had no serious rivals, and we mentioned in
the episode that there was another painter named Mary Eski
who came along in the early seventeen forties and people
(02:58):
were like, ooh, competition. I didn't find it until much
later in a footnote that like, even if he was
any competition, it was not for long, because Mariski died
in seventeen forty three, so he would not have really
caused any big stir Yeah, very long. In this episode,
(03:19):
I was really captivated by the idea. I'm sure there
are still people who do this. It is not something
that has ever been within my means or wall space,
but the idea that people would go to travel to
Venice and as a souvenir commission a big landscape painting.
(03:39):
I was very intrigued by that whole idea. You and
I have been on trips together before, where like I've
seen you by multiple pieces of artwork, but like never
something of the scale that Caneletto was often doing. Yeah,
I'm trying to think of a comparison. I know that
(04:00):
once when we were in New Orleans, I bought a
big piece of art and had it shipped because that
was not going to make it onto a flight. No
it was not, I remember, but it wasn't quite as big.
And then later I went back to the same gallery
some less than a year later, and the companion piece too,
it was still there and I had to buy that.
Speaker 2 (04:19):
So that oh so good.
Speaker 1 (04:21):
So yeah them both not landscapes, but in fact paintings
of the Bride and Frankenstein's Monster. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah,
which I love and they hang in my living room.
Speaker 2 (04:35):
Yeah, I love that idea. I'm like, yes, we should
absolutely start doing that.
Speaker 1 (04:39):
I have a little buying art problem. We have too
many pieces of art at this point, and I don't
know what we're going to do about it. But yeah,
you know, I like supporting artists. I like pretty things.
What Patrick had his his you know, a little portrait
done in montmart while we were there a couple back
(04:59):
before or the pandemic twenty nineteen, and I I like,
I think that's still rolled up in the tube.
Speaker 2 (05:07):
It was a moment.
Speaker 1 (05:09):
We have a lot of artwork in our house that
we need to like get framed and hang up. And
then also I think need to think about like how
to rotate pieces through because we have more art than
we can put on yes walls.
Speaker 2 (05:23):
It's very tricky.
Speaker 1 (05:25):
I will say this, and I this is a confession
of what a ding dong I can sometimes be. Even
when I know I am going to a museum that
has came littos or even two sea came littos, there's
always the moment where I first walk in the room
and from a distance go, oh, are they doing a
photography exhibit? Because from a brief distance they look so
(05:50):
real that it's happened to me more than once, so
that's so fun. And then I go, oh, no, this
is that room. Okay, great, great, great great great. It's
not like you know, the National Gallery normally has a big,
weird modern photography exhibit in the mid in the middle
of like one of its halls. But I always think
it for a second because my brain is not great.
(06:21):
I want to talk also briefly about Mcswhiney's idea of
having like three different painters work on one painting together
multiple paintings, each of which would have three different painters.
In my experience, artistic collaborations are pretty difficult, you know,
(06:44):
Like I have friends who are artists. I've worked on
stuff with people. Two people that are really like minded
can do that pretty easily. Three seems dangerous, especially when
it's a random collector, outside party selecting the artists. That
just seems like it would lead to a lot of Well,
my background looks perfect. I don't know what's going on
(07:05):
in that foreground, Like, I'm just it's a fascinating and
cool idea. Yeah, and there are some of those paintings
that exist and you can see them and they're very interesting.
But I just I marvel at like who was like,
you know what we need to do is make a
bunch of artists work together. That seems good. I'm like,
I know why this project didn't get finished. I know why,
(07:29):
aside from anybody not having you know, and whether there
was a conflict among them or not. Just like the
idea of deliverables being like, Okay, you have to have
your part done by this, and nobody else can work
until you do, Like that is a recipe for never finishing. Yeah, yeah, amazing, amazing.
(07:50):
I want to go back to the National Gallery and
spend more time there. But the problem is that when
you're traveling, your time is finite. Yeah, yeah, because you
could spend multiple days in any of.
Speaker 2 (08:03):
The great museums of the world.
Speaker 1 (08:05):
Sure can I just have like a sleepover week at
the Louver, But then, like, you're not seeing all the
other stuff in Paris, Yes, true of One of my
true regrets of our trip to Paris was that I
did not pre plan our Louve visit and like make
(08:25):
a list of what I really wanted to see to
prioritize those things, and.
Speaker 2 (08:31):
We saw a lot of great art.
Speaker 1 (08:34):
There was stuff I would have loved to see that
I didn't even realize was there until afterward. It was
like it's just so big and so overwhelming, and parts
of it are so incredibly crowded that like, if there
are things that are important to you, good to have
a plan ahead of time. I don't know if they're
still doing this, but when we were there, the audio
(08:56):
tour that you could get was on I don't remember
what handheld console, and it was incredibly cool.
Speaker 2 (09:02):
Getting that great plan.
Speaker 1 (09:03):
Not planning ahead for what we wanted to look at
not the best plan for us. I feel compelled to
mention that I did also see. The one painting I
was after at the National Gallery was vig Lebron's self portrait,
which is and as I said, mem a new friend
of ours. We met her in New York earlier this
(09:25):
year and it turned out she lives out just outside
of Cambridge and was like, hey, look me up when
you're in England, and I was like, okay, and we did,
and she was delightful. But she doesn't know me that well.
And she did get to see me start to cry in.
Speaker 2 (09:39):
Front of art because they were ugly crying.
Speaker 1 (09:43):
Every time every time.
Speaker 2 (09:47):
Cannot help it.
Speaker 1 (09:48):
I don't know what it is, don't even don't even
know what it is, just spectacularly beautiful.
Speaker 2 (09:55):
So good. We talked about Jean Baptiste Lulie.
Speaker 1 (10:11):
This week, yes, which I should say I did not
mean to do to theatrical slash opera. E connected things
one right on top of the other. Yeah. We have
kind of a brief run of episodes that are sort
of all about creative pursuits in.
Speaker 2 (10:30):
Some way, I'll call it that way.
Speaker 1 (10:32):
And it was just.
Speaker 2 (10:34):
Accidental alignment of things, right.
Speaker 1 (10:38):
Yes, in my case, we had canaletto who painted backdrops
for opera, and then of course who was completely ingrained
in that world so much that he owned it essentially. Yeah,
and then we have a forthcoming one that is not
recorded yet. Yes, make Way, make Way for Arts. I
(11:01):
have mentioned to you. I kind of said it at
the end of the episode, and I know we've talked
about it additionally that, like Lulie has this reputation for
being kind of a pain in the neck, But I
have to admire the fact that he did achieve all
of his ambitions. Yeah, he had things he set out
to do and he did them. Yeah, he wanted to
be a noble, he wanted to have money, and he
(11:24):
wanted to have name recognition, and he got all of
it in abundance. Seems like he was kind of manipulative
and ruthless.
Speaker 2 (11:32):
And doing it.
Speaker 1 (11:33):
But yeah, it's it's the ruthlessness I don't love.
Speaker 2 (11:38):
Yeah, that's not my favorite part of his story either.
Speaker 1 (11:44):
I cannot imagine. I keep trying to think of a
comparison one could possibly make to what it would be
like if one creative in any field, but we'll say music,
just to make it easy, suddenly became the only person
in their country allowed to make music without other people
(12:05):
paying them a fee.
Speaker 2 (12:06):
Yeah, when we were in.
Speaker 1 (12:09):
Paris back in like twenty nineteen, I think that's the
year we did that. We were on a walking tour
and I don't remember which like French cultural institution we
were standing in front of, but our guide was talking
about the like French theater being so locked down in
terms of what could be performed, and having lived my
(12:32):
whole life in the United States, that whole idea was
very foreign to me. Like it was just you know,
I I've always lived in a place where people like
you might have to license the play from the person
who wrote it, but like that people could do whatever
they wanted.
Speaker 2 (12:52):
You could write your own play just.
Speaker 1 (12:54):
Because like the theater wasn't going to have anything happening
one weekend and be like, all right, we're gonna just
write something so this theater won't be dark this weekend.
Speaker 2 (13:02):
Yeah, I mean right.
Speaker 1 (13:04):
So there's the way those rules worked. Like I imagine
a stream musician could still play, but as soon as
you have two musicians too many, and that there was
I didn't include it because there were a series of
pieces of legislation or royal decrease that basically kept reducing
(13:28):
that number down to the ones we mentioned, where like
it was like no, eight and then six and then two,
which to me just seems I mean at that point, like,
I'm like, ya, but what about parties where people.
Speaker 2 (13:43):
In public places? Do you know what I mean?
Speaker 1 (13:44):
I compare it to things like Ireland's pub tradition where
musicians just all show up together and play kind of spontaneously,
and I'm like, well, that wouldn't have been allowed. Utterly,
utterly fascinating. We did not mention in the episode, and
I meant to that I did not get into a
(14:08):
lot of the technical ways that Lulie changed music, Oh sure,
because I think I would have needed to take a
music theory class to really understand a lot of it.
Even in really basic write ups that I was reading,
I was like, I don't know what.
Speaker 2 (14:22):
These words mean.
Speaker 1 (14:23):
Yeah, and I am not, you know, entirely ignorant to
opera and music, but I still was like, this is
beyond me, and I didn't want to go down a
rabbit hole that was not so much about his life
but about a lot of technicalities. Yeah. I've had the
same basic reaction in some of the episodes that I've
researched before, even in fields that I do feel like
(14:45):
I have some education in, right, like my bachelor's degree
in literature, but looking at literature from especially not not
anywhere in Europe or North America, or sometimes places are
in Europe and North America, but with like a literary
tradition that's very different from what I learned. Sometimes I'm like,
(15:08):
I don't know what any of these literary styles are.
Speaker 2 (15:10):
I don't know what any of these tropes. I know
what none of this means.
Speaker 1 (15:13):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, because there's cultural stuff too. I mean,
I hope we captured enough of it just in talking
about how he approached finding ways to get French language
to be part of the operatic tradition, which to me
feels like the most important piece of it. Without getting
into the musical technicality. I also didn't want to do
(15:35):
that thing where I try to talk about a thing
I don't really know about it and I end up
making a bungle of it and giving people wrong information sure,
or making actual musically knowledgeable people cry, yeah you know
what that? I kept thinking in the midst of all
of this, sort of like Louise and Enfonteribe m about
(15:59):
the fact about two things. One the way his fortune
has never really been able to be properly assessed because
he did have money coming from many different revenue streams.
I only stumbled across the piece of information about him
(16:19):
being a landlord with you know, two buildings of flats
that he was collecting rent on pretty late in the game,
and I was like, what does this it talk about?
Speaker 2 (16:28):
Anywhere else that I saw.
Speaker 1 (16:29):
I'm sure it is somewhere, probably in a French language book,
but I didn't stumble across it until pretty late. And
even the counts of how many houses he had are
different from account to account. I kind of err on
the side of like the lower numbers just to not
accidentally overinflate, but like, he just had so many different
(16:50):
ways he was making money that I would not be
surprised if there was an entire revenue stream nobody has
actually really realized yet. The other thing, though, I think
an argument could be made. I'm not saying it's correct
or good, but an argument could be made that part
of Louie's kind of ruthlessness about really dictating what could
(17:14):
and could not be performed in France was in support
of King Louis the fourteenth effort to make artistic excellence
kind of the national identity of the country, right. I mean,
I don't know how much of that either would have
been the driver for Louie to be such a task
(17:36):
master with the people that worked under him, or if
he was naturally that way, and so that with the
King's desires fed into that really sort of very anal retentive.
No one can play unless I say so, because I
don't trust them. I mean, you can make the case
that it worked, because France does have that reputation to
(17:57):
this day.
Speaker 2 (17:58):
Sure, but.
Speaker 1 (18:02):
It's an interesting way to get it. You know, France
renowned for its music, ballet, m visual arts, everything, and
there was tons of scientific discovery happening. Then the death
by Cane. Poke's usually what people will say in passing
(18:25):
about him. He's kind of like a footnote y joke
at times.
Speaker 2 (18:29):
Yeah, but like.
Speaker 1 (18:31):
This follows on the heels of me saying there's a
lot of scientific discovery going on, you know, yes, but
also I don't know how comfortable the concept of amputation
would have been, even with the best doctors in the country. Yeah, yeah,
this this is We've had a couple of episodes recently
where somebody died from an infection and seems like probably
(18:55):
the treatment they got like was not great even given
the standards of the time, but also so like infections
were an incredibly common cause of death, So if he
had gotten that amputation, he still may have died from
like either the gangering issue or some other infection, even
if he had taken prompt action. It was just Yeah,
(19:16):
there were no antibiotics and a lot of people died
of pretty minor injuries for that reason. Yeah, I mean
that would have been just another big open wound, depending
on the nature of the stitch up had he gotten in.
And it's interesting because the thing about not being able
to dance anymore gets quoted a lot, but I could
(19:37):
see him saying that Morris an excuse, so he wouldn't
have to say I don't trust you. I also have
some questions about the pounding out the time on the
stage with a sharpened cane, Like was this audible to
people in the audience? I sure would hate that a lot,
and I've if it was audible to me. That was
(19:59):
a little fun because he was so exacting in terms
of what he wanted from the performers and I'm like,
but if you were also making it so the audience
had this relentless pounding happening during like that just does
not seem excellent to me. Yeah, I don't know. I
guess when it's all new, you get to make the rules.
(20:22):
Of course, opera has a metronomic sound that goes along
with it continually that you could accidentally puncture through your
foot with.
Speaker 2 (20:30):
That doesn't sound good at all.
Speaker 1 (20:34):
You know, it does sound good. Rest and relaxation. I
hope everybody listening gets some this weekend. If this is
not how your time lines up so that you have
a regular weekend like other people might, I hope you
still find some time to yourself to recharge and have
some quiet in your mind. If that is what helps
(20:55):
you recharge, or do you just find something that brings
you delight and joy. Nobody can tell you what to do,
make whatever art you want. Hopefully we will be right
back here tomorrow with a classic and on Monday with
a brand new episode. Stuff You Missed in History Class
(21:17):
is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio,
visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen
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