00:03:31.340Yeah. I wonder if people in France now, but also then, when you have a long name like that with
00:03:38.180multiple syllables, like surely there must have been a nickname. You can't go around calling
00:03:42.060people extremely long name. There's so many people who are like, you know, Jean, Michel,
00:03:47.280blah, blah, blah, blah. Like everyone has all these names. I think it's rude. I think now to
00:03:53.040shorten a double name, a hyphenated name. But in the past, in the 18th century, it was very common.
00:03:59.020It's actually more common that people have a hyphenated first name too. And fortunately for
00:04:04.900me as an English speaking writer, both of my major characters have a single first name. So I could at
00:04:11.540least a default to that, which was very nice. I appreciate also just as I've been, you're a
00:04:19.020listener to the podcast, so you know, but I've been learning about this era and the French
00:04:22.820Revolution and everything. And I'm just excited when someone is not named Marie, because I know,
00:04:28.380well, almost everyone is. Everyone is called Marie. And so I think it was actually very common
00:04:35.900in the 18th century to have Marie marry, right? So it's a Catholic country, to have that as part
00:04:41.120of a hyphenated name and then usually they would use the second name as the first name and that's
00:04:47.460that's somebody there's a like in modern times there's a woman who I used to work with and her
00:04:52.260name was technically Marie Lees but she just went by Lees and I felt like that was a very classic
00:04:57.360French thing where just everyone yeah you just yes assume Marie is the first part of everyone's
00:05:02.440name but you just don't say it but Adelaide is just Adelaide yes so that's nice for us and as
00:05:07.780you know, I use her first name throughout the book and we'll defend it to the death,
00:05:12.700but we don't have to go into that or we can. No, we can, I think. And we should,
00:05:16.400because this really, um, your book was, I mean, thank God, but I was reading it at the same time
00:05:23.000that I'm working on my project and you have, you describe how you use people's names, like women
00:05:28.640have, anyway, you can explain all of this better than I could, but I'm like, I've never thought
00:05:32.780about this, but this is so important and so interesting. Well, I've written about this
00:05:36.580before, you know, it's very complicated as a biographer when you're writing about a woman's
00:05:41.380life. Most women in the Western world, if they marry, change their name. And we consider it
00:05:49.640kind of a token of seriousness to use a last name. So how do you refer to a woman character figure
00:05:55.840that you're featuring in childhood who has one name and a different name in adulthood? Or maybe
00:06:00.480she remarries several times. Or maybe her father or brother is also very famous and they have the
00:06:05.920same last name. I mean, it's super complicated. But if you choose to use a woman's first name,
00:06:11.320it's considered unserious. Why is that? Because women are considered unserious. So women's first
00:06:16.580names aren't given the gravitas that Napoleon has, or Dante has, or Michelangelo has. But I think
00:06:23.220they should. And I think it's kind of the only sensible way to treat a woman in many ways. And0.98
00:06:29.400someone like Adelaide had three different names in her lifetime, actually four. And that's how
00:06:35.120women get lost in history, you lose the track of who they are. Do first names solve that problem?1.00
00:06:40.760Not necessarily, but at least it's consistent. No. And it's interesting because there's so people
00:06:46.520like Marie Antoinette, for instance, and that wasn't actually her name. Like that was the
00:06:50.480French translation of her name. But royal people don't have a last name. So that makes it easier
00:06:56.120to know what to call them. Exactly. I mean, you could call them the first, the second, the third.
00:07:00.940True. And that's confusing in a different way. Yeah.
00:07:03.320Yeah, it's confusing. But we manage, you know, we manage. There are many people named Jones. There are many people named White. There are many people named whatever, right? We figure it out. And I just would add in the world of art, it is a sign of your sort of honorable status in the history of art to go by your first name.
00:07:24.920Michelangelo, Leonardo, Raphael, Rembrandt. I mean, I could go on and on, right? And so it makes even
00:07:33.780more sense when I'm writing about a woman artist to say, you know what, Frida, that's a perfect0.58
00:07:37.800example to keep, just use the first name. It has a tradition in the history of art, and I'm going
00:07:43.060to use that tradition. And that's what I did, my book. And I want to say also your book, Portrait
00:07:49.000of a Woman, very long subtitle. It's written very much like you are an art historian, but the book
00:07:56.500is written very much for a person who does not have that background and also for a person who
00:07:59.860does not have the background and understanding French history, both of which is me. So I want
00:08:04.920to let people know. I mean, that's everyone. Maybe the French understand it. I mean, it's
00:08:10.720super complicated. I want to say, I guess I'm a writer and so I'm a storyteller and I'm an art
00:08:17.500historian. So the most important thing for me is clarity and to convey the story. So it's tricky
00:08:25.540because it's confusing. I mean, I was listening to the Madame du Berry episode and laughing because
00:08:30.240it's so complicated and there's nothing more complicated than the French Revolution, unless
00:08:34.580maybe it's French art in the 18th century, very complicated. So you're trying to like feed all
00:08:39.540this information to the reader while telling the story. So I had to be kind of selective, like,
00:08:44.220what do you need to know to understand this without going nuts and making people crazy?
00:08:50.060Actually, writing it short was difficult, like culling and just like trying to be clear.
00:08:56.260So yes, it is to be read. It's not an art history book. It's a story.
00:09:01.780But there's a lot of art history and it's about art.
00:09:04.740Yeah. And there's a lot of beautiful illustrations, color illustrations throughout the book,
00:09:08.560which I really appreciate because it explains, as an artist, she's communicating so much stuff
00:09:13.380through symbolism. And I could read you describing the symbolism, but then to see the actual painting,
00:09:18.700I'm like, oh, okay. Yeah, now I see. I see what you mean.
00:09:22.360Yeah. I mean, Chronicle Books is fantastic. They're known for making these beautiful objects.
00:09:26.460I love them, my publisher. And I just want to say also about Adelaide that this is a case for a lot
00:09:30.860of women in history, in world history, that there's not a lot of written record from their
00:09:36.700own hand or other people about them necessarily. So what's great about having an artist is you can
00:09:42.100get at them their personality their lives from a different angle a visual angle which is
00:09:46.300communication it's entirely they're communicating through visual symbols signs everything but even
00:09:53.520just like the the choice of i mean and we're gonna we'll talk through all this but like there's
00:09:57.640several points in her life where the subject she chooses for a painting really communicates
00:10:02.940where we don't have her diaries or her letters it's like oh this is what she was about this is
00:10:06.780what she wanted people to know like that was exactly yeah it's like when i was doing um a
00:10:11.980while ago i was doing a mary queen of scots series and we don't have a lot of diaries from her but
00:10:17.800what we do have are her embroideries and then when you start looking at them as art objects it's like
00:10:23.220oh my gosh like the the rage but also the anyway like you get so much through and that's what i
00:10:31.180learned through um claire hunter wrote a really good book about mary queen of scots and her
00:10:35.060embroideries, but like for a woman artist, a creative person where you don't have the words,
00:10:40.100it's like, but you can still glean so much about a person and what they want people to know by the0.91
00:10:45.000opposite. Yeah. And I really push back on this necessary idea in biography that you have to
00:10:52.860have letters, you have to have journals. Without that, you have no primary document. These are
00:10:58.660primary documents. And you know what? People lie in letters and people lie to themselves
00:11:02.720in journal entries so everything has to be taken with a grain of salt it doesn't make it true
00:11:09.080because it was said in the letter it makes it probable it makes it also people make mistakes
00:11:14.660anyway i there's so much richness in visual culture and we are increasingly a visual culture
00:11:20.780ourselves and so it's really fun to be able to talk about pictures um but also to reclaim these
00:11:28.920lives that have been overlooked for so long, partly because women's lives weren't worth
00:12:42.560And A La Toilette was a place where kind of the beautiful people could have got by beautiful bits and bats.
00:12:50.260This is in the Madame du Berry episode, which I know you've heard.
00:12:53.220That's why I described it as similar to Hooters, in the sense that one of the beautiful things was he only hired very beautiful young salespeople, including Madame du Berry, the future Madame du Berry.
00:13:06.060So when she was just a young, but already very beautiful young woman, Adelaide worked alongside her, we think, at La Toilette, and they became friends, friendly at least.
00:13:16.560So these young shop girls who were called Les Clisettes were kind of known for being potentially available. I mean, they're interacting with people above their station. And in the case of Monsieur Labie, he's choosing very much. He wants beautiful girls and beautiful things.
00:13:33.280So she grows up surrounded by beauty and surrounded by aesthetic pleasure and an understanding of aesthetics. I would say even an understanding of fabrics, of the weight of things, how things shine.
00:13:47.760One of the things you'll read about her early in assessments of her is, oh, as a woman, she understood how to depict a dress. And I would say, well, maybe as a woman, but also maybe as the child of a person who made his living with fine fabrics, that's probably more likely.
00:14:02.480So she's one of eight children, daughter of a shopkeeper. She's the eighth. So the eighth
00:14:08.740child and a girl, probably not an auspicious position. I say that as the eighth child.1.00
00:17:08.600Exactly. Like those giant paintings, like you think about, like, with great names, like Rafe of the Sabine Women, you know, like, multi-figure, blood, gore, breasts hanging out, babies being impaled, you know, wild animals.
00:17:23.540Like, it's, they're violent, or they're super serious, or they're, you know, they're filled with drama. They're many, many figures, very large. This is the apex of French painting. Very few attain that status in French art.
00:17:39.040And her teacher's son, who is her friend, Vincent the Sun, does attain it.
00:17:45.240He gets to enter the studio of a famous, one of the most famous history painters in France.
00:17:52.040And that's important because they are friends.
00:17:55.000And he eventually wins, Vincent, the Prix de Rome.
00:17:59.000And the Prix de Rome is, it's kind of like Top Chef or Project Runway.
00:18:05.000Like it's a competition among students and it's timed and you only have so much time to like whip out a painting and then it's judged and the winner gets to go to Rome for four years and study classical art in Rome, you know, from the paintings that are there and the classical statues to be in the world, the classical world and study it firsthand.
00:18:25.840So he goes away and she's left. She's learned miniature painting and her father has sold a la toilette. And so what happens to her is what happens to a lot of young women. She's married off at 19 while Vincent is in Italy.
00:18:41.020and she uh i mean it's looking from now you're kind of like oh bad choice but it could have been
00:18:49.680worse for sure he was her husband was another neighbor but he was a clerk in the treasury of
00:18:55.820the clergy so like a bureaucrat um but she has written into her at 19 written into her um marriage
00:19:05.580documents that she's an artist. And like she has a profession. So she has studied miniature0.91
00:19:13.200painting professionally, and she already considers herself a professional artist,
00:19:17.500even as a teenager. And she does this amazing self-portrait miniature where she shows herself
00:19:22.820painting. But when you look closely, you see she's not painting a miniature. She's using,
00:19:26.780well, she is, she's painting a miniature in the painting, but behind her are the things that are
00:19:30.540used in oil painting. So she has these goals and she's telegraphed them like, I'm going to be
00:19:37.560an oil painter. I'm going to be a Royal Academy painter, which is crazy. Like that's,
00:19:45.260that doesn't happen. Women are really not allowed in the Royal Academy. They have this sort of1.00
00:19:50.440unofficial quota of four. Oh my gosh. Well, can you, okay. Like you explained this in the book,
00:19:55.520but the the quote of and how that came to be is so fucked up so yeah well it's it's it's official0.56
00:20:01.760and then it's a it's unofficial so um i mean there's also this whole long history with when0.75
00:20:06.340the royal academy is established in the 17th century the king says it's for everyone it's to
00:20:11.480it's for the greatest artists and basically what begins to happen is this um this sense of like
00:20:18.200okay, okay, we'll let in the king's knight's daughter, who's pretty good, because that's a
00:20:25.720favorite of the king. Okay, we'll let in this guy's wife, because that's just a collegial
00:20:31.840thing to do. But there's this unspoken understanding that there can never be more
00:20:36.300than four at any given time. And later, an official says, because four is enough to tip our hat at
00:20:44.960their sex but they don't need more than that but it's literally like so if there's four women who
00:20:50.480are members it's like no other women can join until one of those four people dies well that
00:20:55.580happens later okay um but yes so first it's four okay first it's four but well it's unspoken it's
00:21:01.180unspoken but yes you're right like definitely before so you have to die so obviously this
00:21:05.940does not engender like great fellow feeling among women but also why do you want to be in the royal
00:21:11.460Academy, because it's everything that that is a sign that you are an important artist,
00:21:16.440a great artist, it means you can have lodging in the Louvre. It means that you can have access to
00:21:20.780state commissions. It's the acknowledgement that you are, it's kind of like when, you know,
00:21:25.840in all the years that I was writing before I published a book, if I said, if even though I
00:21:29.600wrote full time, and I published, people would say, have you published a book? Because like,
00:21:34.740if you haven't published a book, somehow you're not a writer, like in people's minds. It's the
00:21:38.340same kind of thing like but but way more way more important than that because it's also how you get
00:21:44.340students i mean it's how you make a living as an artist so it is an absurd goal but it is the goal
00:21:52.940it's like wanting to be on broadway what are the chances right but yeah if you're an actor like
00:22:00.620you're if you're a musical theater actor that's what you want i don't know maybe i'm not giving
00:22:03.820good great examples but no you're giving you're giving examples and part of it too and i'm sure
00:22:08.940we'll get to this when we get to it but like there's there's something you describe in your
00:22:12.220book is kind of like the super bowl where every well a few years all the artists in the academy
00:22:16.760display their stuff yes so every two years yeah they have the royal salon and the royal salon
00:22:23.320is where everyone comes to look at the work of the royal academy artists and you have to be in
00:22:29.800the Royal Academy to show your work in the Royal Salon. So it's like, yes, exactly. It's like being
00:22:33.800in the Oscars or making the Olympics. And everyone comes to look at the paintings and the sculpture
00:22:39.760that are in the Royal Salon every two years. And you're written about, you're gossiped about,
00:22:46.060you are, that's what makes people want to have commissions with you because you're a painter
00:22:50.740of the Royal Academy and you show at the Royal Salon. If you don't have that, there are other
00:22:55.860salons. There are other organizations, but they don't have the same status. It's completely
00:23:01.300different. And it's very dependent. Like, you know, if you're, if you're in the Royal Academy
00:23:06.440and you, it's like, okay, you're an official artist, but like, but you need patrons. You
00:23:10.180need people to be hiring you and pay. You can't just be like, I'm an, I'm, you don't just paint
00:23:15.540like you paint because someone has hired you to paint a certain thing. Right. Most artists are not
00:23:20.460from wealth. I mean, they are well established, or they can have great connections, like someone
00:23:26.580we're going to talk about, but they don't come from wealth. So to accrue wealth and status,
00:23:31.220all of those things, you need the Royal Academy. You need to be part of that, especially if you're
00:23:36.280a woman like Adelaide, who will soon be an independent woman. Yeah, because because spoilers,1.00
00:23:42.100she leaves her husband. She leaves her husband, yes, which is like crazy. So she, in 1769,1.00
00:23:52.060on August 25th, she marries him. In 1774, on August 25th, she has her first exhibition at
00:23:59.060the Salon de Saint-Luc. And the Academy of Saint-Luc is like, basically, it's like a guild.
00:24:05.080Almost anyone can join. There's lots of women. But she has her first really official,0.99
00:24:09.980you know exhibition and she is kind of emboldened by that to begin studying pastel
00:24:17.320with a royal academy member and pastel is a step up from from miniatures because they they're large
00:24:24.340they can be very large but like miniatures they are a like they don't smell they don't stain
00:24:32.340pastels they're portable they still have a kind of womanly aura about them um although uh de la
00:24:39.300tour is you know a master and considered a very important painter in terms of pastels like pastels
00:24:44.660I did not know as a person who has not studied art history that pastels were anything other than
00:24:50.540like a thing you learn about in like fourth grade art class right to draw with because I just
00:24:55.420remember you like they never harden they never dry so they're that's also a bad thing because
00:25:01.780they are very fragile yeah so the paintings would be always you'd have to put glass on top of them
00:25:07.420or something, I guess. Yeah. I mean, now they spray a fixative, but you know, they're done
00:25:11.160on paper. So even the great, great works of 18th century French pastel are done on these
00:25:16.660like pieces of paper that are just put together and then put under glass. And one of the most
00:25:21.960exciting things for me in doing research on Adelaide was getting to see her pastels in Versailles.
00:25:27.580Like that was amazing because you so rarely get to see pastels. They're almost never on display.
00:25:32.600because they're so fragile but i just didn't know that fine artists in history use pasta it's like
00:25:37.960it's like you told me it's like and then she used crayons i'm like what exactly well they did to me
00:25:42.880right no exactly but it seems to me like nowadays it's like a thing that yeah oh yeah yeah you do
00:25:47.920in in elementary school but like she was doing like and there's pictures in your book of like her
00:25:52.060of just beautiful things that she accomplished paintings they were yeah and they look like
00:25:57.480paintings yeah yes they do they do and they're gorgeous i mean the thing about pastel is that
00:26:02.360they have this really vibrant color and because pastels have that powdery surface they're actually
00:26:08.200beautiful for portraiture because they kind of capture that furredness of human flesh you know
00:26:14.540like when you see a varnished painting it's so slick but a pastel has that kind of almost 3d
00:26:20.920surface that skin has so it is a beautiful medium for portraiture and it was it was really
00:26:27.500invented by a woman, Rosalba Carriera, who was Italian in the 18th century, who Rosalba is
00:26:35.160known by her first name, Rosalba. Great, great artist. But it's taken up by the French in a big
00:26:41.560way. And it also suits the rococo because it can be very bright colors and very pretty colors.
00:26:47.740So she's studying with this really important guy. And it's right around that time that she
00:26:50.820leaves her husband. And what's remarkable about that is how is she going to make a living?
00:26:55.380like that's crazy that's nuts you can't do that um but she does and we don't know why
00:27:02.220that we have no record of why but you can kind of imagine first of all she has not had a child
00:27:07.740they've been married for she leaves him in 1777 so they've been married for seven years when they
00:27:13.240had the official separation um and why i've never had a child we don't know but i have my suspicions
00:27:19.800Um, I actually looked into birth, 18th century birth control, um, and abortion and both existed,
00:27:27.780but I think it's far more likely that they didn't have, or it is certainly likely that
00:27:32.980they didn't have relations or, or not much.
00:27:36.100So she leaves him and she's able to get back her dowry, which is remarkable and very unusual.0.67
00:27:43.380And she's takes on women's students almost immediately.
00:27:46.720so she becomes an instructor of young women and this is really important and begins a professional0.98
00:27:54.260career as a woman artist which is dangerous for a lot of reasons women aren't supposed to be0.99
00:27:58.660professional artists it's kind of like being an actress like you don't put yourself out there0.97
00:28:02.280and you certainly don't do it if you don't have a man protecting your modesty and your everything
00:28:07.740right um so she's immediately in this very morally tenuous position um and the same year0.94
00:28:16.700that she has the official separation she shows at a new salon that is part of this like brand new
00:28:23.560thing called the salon de la correspondance and it's run by this like bigger than life
00:28:30.320kind of P.T. Barnum guy who shows art and shows like taxidermied armadillos, I don't know,
00:28:38.540whatever, like wild things all together, like a cabinet of curiosities. And at the Salon de
00:28:45.260Correspondance in 1777, he shows Adelaide Le Biguier and another woman artist who's becoming
00:28:52.660very renowned named elizabeth végé le brun and elizabeth is the artist in the 18th century that
00:29:00.620if anyone knows the name of a woman artist from the 18th century that's usually who they know
00:29:04.660and if you were to see reproductions of her work like in my book or other places you would
00:29:09.140recognize them like you're like i want to say yeah um listen to this podcast if you look right now at
00:29:15.340your podcast listening app the um the picture for this season is my face done up as a portrait of
00:29:22.380Marie Antoinette by Elisabeth Fichet-Librod. So you are familiar with that, even if you don't
00:29:26.960know that you are. Exactly. And that was a very famous painting. That's a whole nother story.
00:29:32.320And a very interesting story. So Elisabeth is younger than Adelaide, notably widely acclaimed
00:29:41.060to be beautiful and said many times, much more beautiful than Adelaide. And she is the toast of
00:29:48.900Paris. She's a fashionista who changes the face of fashion in France and everywhere.0.64
00:29:54.860She becomes close friends with Marie Antoinette and is eventually the official portraitist or
00:30:00.220official painter to Marie Antoinette. So she's a friend of the queen. She's gorgeous. And she is
00:30:07.660kind of a child prodigy or had been and is quite young. And she's married to a picture dealer.
00:30:12.540And he promotes her work widely because he has a gambling problem. And he's using all of her money.
00:30:18.900And when this P.T. Barnum sets them up, he's a master of PR.
00:30:22.900And he says, oh, by chance, two women artists have been put together on the walls of the Salon de Correspondence, which, of course, he did himself.
00:30:31.460And he sets up a rivalry between them that exists to this day.
00:30:36.280You will see things written about it all the time.
00:30:38.520And so as Adelaide is kind of beginning to make a public life for herself as an artist and needs the money, this much younger, more beautiful, connected to royalty person is put up as like who she has to be put against.
00:30:55.980And this is something we see today all the time in sports and music.
00:31:01.220You know, women are made to have a cat fight kind of in public, even though they have no desire for it.1.00
00:31:08.520Yeah. No, I think it's something like there's something it's so not elemental, but it's just0.88
00:31:13.800such a recur. I'm just thinking when I was younger, it's like Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera
00:31:18.820debuted the same year. And it was just like, well, you have which one is better? Who do you prefer?
00:31:22.480It's like, well, what can't you like both? And now there's like Sabrina Carpenter, Chapel Roan.
00:31:27.060It's like, oh, exactly. Yeah. It's like two women who emerge. And it's like, well, there can't be
00:31:32.880two talented women. Right. Because what do they have in common? Yeah. What do Beyonce and Taylor1.00
00:31:38.760Swift have in common? They're both successful women artists. That's it. They exist at the same1.00
00:31:44.280time. And this is the thing I kind of harp on in the book. There's this idea of the exceptional
00:31:49.860woman. There can only be one exceptional woman of any given era. One, because the exceptional
00:31:55.940woman proves the rule. And it's not too many because one is enough is sufficient to give0.95
00:32:03.180honor to their sex. So they're put up against each other. And honestly, the portrait that the0.68
00:32:09.820self portrait that Elizabeth shows is like stunning. I mean, she looks it's such an amazing
00:32:15.900oil painting. It hangs in the in the National Gallery in London. It's very famous. I mean,
00:32:24.180It's an incredible painting, and it's super, not just accomplished, it's super, like, she's aiming as high as she can.
00:32:34.600She's basing the painting on something by Peter Paul Rubens.
00:32:44.240and Adelaide what is shown of her self-portrait is just a very straightforward pastel self-portrait
00:32:52.740that really is an advertisement of like looking for commissions like look I can do a feather I
00:32:58.340can do glinting earring I can do all of these things but it doesn't kind of like there's no
00:33:03.400not much wow factor to it so I can imagine leaving that and being like oh that didn't feel good like
00:33:08.420you have a bad picture in the yearbook and your rival has like had hair and makeup done by someone
00:33:14.040professional and her parents paid to have like a great picture taken like it would feel like that
00:33:17.680you can imagine but adelaide learns a lot from that and she comes back and does a series of
00:33:23.740pastels of men of the royal academy that are incredible and so her you know elizabeth does
00:33:31.540this painting where she sort of allies herself with one of the great masters of the past um
00:33:36.680rubens big big deal and adelaide comes back and shows a series of pastels of men in her neighborhood
00:33:45.060who are members of the royal academy so presumably her friends um and they're beautiful portraits but
00:33:51.920it's so smart right she's like i know i because you know to do someone's portrait someone has to
00:33:57.420sit in front of you for several hours while you talk to them so you can let them know your ambition
00:34:03.540I mean, you're subtle, of course, but you're ambition, you're friendly, you're, you know, you're a good person, you're fun, you're one of the guys, whatever it is, but also they watch you work. They know you can do it. And that's important because women are always accused of not doing their work themselves. So all these important men of the Royal Academy see her work and she gets to know them. So in 1783, there are two openings, suddenly, for women in the Royal Academy.
00:34:30.600because two women died two of the four died two women die yes two women die um but there's no
00:34:36.540rule that you have to fill them the four is like like there are many times there's one or none
00:34:41.800like you don't have to fill it but there's an oh there are these two openings two openings0.75
00:34:45.800two openings what are the chances they don't want women anyway that they're going to put0.96
00:34:50.300two women in it's extremely low you um you know extremely low so if you know if i was0.93
00:35:00.420Adelaide, I would not get my hopes up. But in May of 1783, both women are admitted on the same day,0.99
00:35:10.080which furthers their rivalry, as you might imagine. And what is remarkable is they're both
00:35:15.800admitted even though neither is connected to the Royal Academy. They don't have a husband in the
00:35:20.380Royal Academy. They don't have any reason except for excellence to be admitted. Well, Elizabeth is
00:35:28.000admitted when you look at the Academy minutes by order, par ordre. And that order came from
00:35:35.420Marie Antoinette and the king. She's the queen's favorite. The queen wants her favorite in the
00:35:42.360Royal Academy. That reflects well on the queen. And I mean, my interpretation and many people's
00:35:48.000interpretation of Adelaide being admitted on the same day is them saying, oh, okay, if you're going
00:35:53.600to make us men, woman, Marie Antoinette, who we don't like anyway, you're going to make us admit
00:35:59.720a woman, we'll come back with our own woman, who is her rival. So that's a, it's a little F.U. to0.62
00:36:05.560them. And they admit Adelaide and the minutes say, le voie, please, the votes taken in the usual
00:36:13.620manner. Like, so it's a little bit of a slap in the face. And Adelaide signs herself into the
00:36:23.020Royal Academy books as a member with a new name. And that name is Adelaide de Virtue, Adelaide of
00:36:29.820the Virtues. Like, I'm a virtuous woman. And I have, and I have virtues. Okay, all of this now
00:36:38.200backstory, or maybe it's forward story is that Adelaide will die, what I think is young in her0.74
00:36:43.940early 50s. And Elizabeth will live into her 80s. And she's also younger than Adelaide. And she will
00:36:51.080publish in the 19th century a multi-volume memoir that is a bestseller where she tells the whole
00:36:58.420story of her life. And she becomes a second, like she has a second wind of celebrity in the 19th
00:37:03.860century. And she very cleverly writes Adelaide out of the story. So there is no other person
00:37:11.640who's admitted that day when you read the chapter on her admission. She never says there's another
00:37:16.160woman who's admitted. She never mentions ever in this multi-volume memoir, the name of the woman
00:37:22.760who was always her greatest rival. So it's another way that Adelaide was kind of erased from history
00:37:28.560after death. And for some reason, maybe as a writer, I find that really sad and horrible.
00:37:34.820I guess just to say that there is a Royal Salon just a few months after they're admitted. So they
00:37:40.080both get to show work, but they can't make new work, right? Because it's too soon. So they have
00:37:44.660to use the work that they have. And they show works. Adelaide's are actually received quite
00:37:51.780well. The Getty just acquired one of those pastels. It went for, I think, six or seven times over the
00:37:58.000asking price. So Adelaide's trajectory is going up for sure. But at the Salon of 1783, Adelaide
00:38:06.160is accused in a libelous pamphlet of sleeping with her friend Vincent. And there's this famous
00:38:13.960line where, so Vincent, Vincent in French sounds like 2000. Vincent is the same as 2000. So his
00:38:23.140name sounds like 2000. So there was this sort of line and it said, Vincent 2000, Vincent or 2000,
00:38:33.640whoever she's sleeping with, it's the same thing. In other words, she's a slut. She's sleeping1.00
00:38:38.880around and Vincent, her friend, is doing the paintings. So it's the most common accusation
00:38:47.040that happens to women, but it's devastating to Adelaide. And it's very dangerous because she's0.99
00:38:51.540an, she is a single woman. Like her, her morality can't be attacked that way. And she doesn't really0.98
00:38:57.780have anyone to defend her. And she's able to get the pamphlets pulled. But I mean, I can quote from
00:39:04.280them. They're famous. Once something's written and out there, it's out there. But her famous
00:39:10.580comeback to everything is at the next salon, which is two years later, 1785. She debuts this
00:39:17.060monumental self-portrait, bigger than life-size, of herself and two of her students. And it's in
00:39:23.820the Metropolitan Museum of Art now. And it's one of their most kind of prized 18th century works.
00:39:29.800It wasn't for a long time, but now it is considered like one of the great works of 18th century French art.
00:39:35.800And right after, so it's her with two of her pupils, right after she and Elizabeth were admitted to the Royal Academy,
00:39:44.640they took that quota, that unofficial quota of four and went to the king and said, okay, enough is enough.1.00
00:39:51.280We can't be having all these women coming in.1.00
00:39:53.960it will it will disrupt the the friendship among all of these male artists because you know how it1.00
00:40:00.700is once women enter the scene if it's just i've just pictured this like bro this kind of like
00:40:05.500fraternity vibe well because the whole thing is like once you're in a minute you can have1.00
00:40:09.080apartments and like but then we can't we can't have her like bro time if there's like a lady
00:40:14.360in our dormitories exactly can't have bro time even though their wives live there their children1.00
00:40:20.980live there and female models come and go um yeah so you are are saying one of the things that
00:40:28.360happened was that um adelaide tried to get her apartment in the louvre and they told her no
00:40:32.660because you have women students and it's not good for their morals to be where there are so many men1.00
00:40:38.800around um even though your wives are there your kids are there your models are there but then she0.98
00:40:44.460also like she was always um very dedicated to training women and having female students and1.00
00:40:50.360And so like she could have been like, OK, I'll stop having female students.1.00
00:57:39.140once i realized she had gone to the studio and i was like oh what an interesting life but okay
00:57:45.780that's something else okay and jefferson was a little bit of a digression too french revolution
00:57:50.580is happening oh so you said she's she's we can go over but she's thriving her career is at this
00:57:59.320apex it's amazing huge commission like everything everything is great like the royal family is
00:58:05.560supporting her yeah and it's just kind of the worst possible time to be supported by the royal
00:58:10.480family with money due on completion of a painting because the french revolution happens and the royal
00:58:18.040family is so she gets the commission in 1788 and in 1789 all the best deal um all the stuff happens
00:58:28.160okay this is quickly follow the best deal elizabeth vijay lebrun goes this is bad i'm getting
00:58:36.060out of here and she takes she literally gets on the first coach she can it takes till october
00:58:40.540and leaves with her daughter thus cementing her reputation forever because she then travels
00:58:45.720around europe and paints all the emigre all the people fleeing the revolution the nobility
00:58:50.800all across europe and so she just becomes more and more famous she goes to italy she goes to the
00:58:56.240a holy roman empire she goes to russia she eventually goes to britain like she just
00:59:00.840travels around painting important people and becomes like super famous even more famous than
00:59:06.640before adelaide what kind of like madame du barry who you're like dude stay in england what's wrong
00:59:12.900with you um so elizabeth super smart adelaide believes in the revolution she is a shopkeeper's
00:59:20.780daughter. She thinks she holds these two totally bizarre truths, although it happened in the early
00:59:29.640years of the revolution, including the king. If you'll remember, the Declaration of the Rights of
00:59:33.860Man was something that the king reluctantly supported, which was that he would basically
00:59:38.620be a constitutional monarchy. So she's part of that first wave of the revolution. She believes
00:59:43.960revolution. She believes in its goals, its ideals, and she wants her history. She wants
00:59:53.840the money and she wants the accolades and she wants the fame. And it's not super dangerous yet,
01:00:01.6001789, to be painting the king's brother. It's not super dangerous until the Comte de Provence
01:00:06.860actually flees France and he gets away. And then later the king flees and does not get away.
01:00:13.960Those are bad. And get what does she do? She keeps working on the painting because she's, well, she doesn't renounce the painting. She's probably not actively working on it, but she plans for it to work out. I mean, her hope is that the Comte de Mavance will come back, that this is all going to get solved.
01:00:30.540and she will have created this incredible work for him. And now there'll be a new kind of
01:00:38.460constitutional monarchy and she will be a painter to those royals. It's kind of crazy hope, honestly,
01:00:45.720especially as things begin to devolve. But also I think like we're just, we're just this episode
01:00:51.480and the previous episode, which you won't have heard yet, but we're talking about like the French
01:00:54.880Revolution happens and no one knew what it was going to turn into and what it was going to be
01:00:59.440like and it quickly changes and it reminds me like the people who were there it's like they're
01:01:05.660like okay the french revolution is happening but you know like i still have to keep running my
01:01:09.340fruit and vegetable stand i still have to keep like like people who are there who have jobs
01:01:13.660it's it reminds me i talked about this you know in the episode i just recorded that is coming up
01:01:19.280before this one but it's like in the early days of like in 2020 when the pandemic started and
01:01:23.840restaurants were like we need to stay afloat i guess we're gonna we'll do delivery we'll sell
01:01:28.460are bags of flour to people like people are just like how can i keep my business running and the
01:01:32.500french revolution was the same it's like everyone can't flee there's people who have jobs and they
01:01:37.260have to keep people buying their products and like well where would someone like adelaide have gone
01:01:41.600yeah she can't go she has nowhere she her family's from paris she's yeah exactly so what else is she
01:01:48.200gonna do but stay there and keep painting and kind of hope for the best because she has incredible
01:01:52.080status i mean i guess i kind of also think about it like in ukraine like there are people just
01:01:57.020they're just living their lives. It was like, things are happening, they got to go on.
01:02:01.440But she does another pretty stupid thing in the sense of stupid in the sense of like endangering1.00
01:02:06.400yourself. And that is she uses the opportunity of the revolution to speak at the assembly of1.00
01:02:12.720the Royal Academy, women are not supposed to speak in public. That's not a thing in Western1.00
01:02:18.140history, like women speaking is bad. That means you're even worse than showing self portraits1.00
01:02:23.720of yourself. Not only does she speak at the assembly, but she says, if there is, if this
01:02:31.040revolution is based on egalité, then it is not fair that women are kept from these ranks because
01:02:37.680that's what egalité is. And she speaks so persuasively that it passes. They overturn the0.99
01:02:44.940restriction on women. So now, theoretically, there is no more quota on women allowed in the French
01:02:51.960Academy. So she's done two things. She's opened a pathway for women artists in France, and she's
01:02:58.320made sure that her own students, that her legacy can grow in French art. It's so, she's so smart
01:03:06.360while being a little bit foolish in terms of putting herself forward in a very dangerous time.0.88
01:03:11.660Because one of the people who doesn't like this at all is Jacques-Louis David, who is probably the
01:03:17.560most important 18th century French painter and who becomes the great propagandist of the French
01:03:22.700Revolution. And he becomes the painter really and right-hand man of Robespierre during the terror in
01:03:29.2401793. So she's playing a very dangerous game. David calls her out in the assembly. He calls
01:03:35.400her out to the National Assembly, the governing body, and says like, there's a hen in the cock0.98
01:03:41.000house or something like that, or like there can be a cock. And I can't remember. He has some like0.97
01:03:44.200weird yeah turn of phrase chicken basically metaphor yeah a chicken based this this bitch1.00
01:03:50.920is causing trouble and that's what women do and we cannot allow this and that will have well it's1.00
01:03:57.340very dangerous for her especially as rose pierre comes to power and as the the terror begins but0.99
01:04:02.680it's also very dangerous in terms of women's legacy in france because there will be a lasting
01:04:09.900repercussion to that um she and vincent who have who are close friends and have been friends this
01:04:16.260whole time and he is the rival of david so both of them are in and he was also a royal painter
01:04:22.780of the court so they're like in a bad position they move to a suburb just outside of paris which
01:04:27.160was very smart some of her students come with her his brother um and his wife come with vincent
01:04:33.220and they just try and lay low outside of paris during the terror which is very smart during that
01:04:38.960time of course the king is executed later the queen is executed 1793 but also in 1793 the
01:04:46.880revolution says assembly says hey you know what she adelaide really does deserve to have lodgings
01:04:54.920in the louvre that would really be the right thing and they legalize divorce so in the middle
01:05:01.280of all this horrible stuff she suddenly gets her divorce and she gets lodgings in the louvre
01:05:08.000Woo! It's like, so it's pretty hopeful. Like, it's pretty good. It's really hopeful. And then they say, you need to bring every single piece of any drawing, sketch, portrait, modello, which is like an oil first version of that history painting, turn it over, and we're going to burn it in a public square.
01:05:34.800Because the painting contained images of enemies of the revolution. Is that why?
01:05:41.820Yes. Yes. I mean, so do a lot of paintings that survived. So it's hard to say. She is an enemy and living with the enemy of David. One of the people who chooses the work is Elizabeth's estranged husband who is back, who stays back in France.
01:06:15.720And the thing about him living abroad that's very bad is he could be assembling armies against France, the enemies of France against France.
01:06:21.780So, yeah, he's the worst possible person she could be painting.
01:06:25.480And there's like a bonfire of art in a Paris square.
01:09:04.360and she has no uh she has no status left wait i'm gonna make a guess and i'll see if this is
01:09:13.860where you're headed okay was this new place where vincent was were people allowed to have their
01:09:18.100wives living with them yes yes okay okay um so that's one reason why they get married when they
01:09:26.000get married and move into the institute de france she and marie gabrielle capet have their own
01:09:32.520apartment that is connected by a staircase to Vincent's apartment. So they don't live together
01:09:39.280exactly. Also, so my theory is, of course, that Capet and Marie-Gabrielle Capet and Adelaide are
01:09:48.800lovers, and that Vincent is also gay. I have reasons that I believe that to be true. I just0.91
01:09:55.700want to say that I do think they all loved each other. I think they really were a chosen family.
01:09:59.780There is so much affection in their portraits. But also, Adelaide is very sick and probably knows she's dying. What will happen to Gabrielle when Adelaide dies? Where will she go? She can't inherit anything from Adelaide. She can't. She has no legal status. She's a single woman living alone in Paris.
01:10:22.360So by marrying Vincent, A, it allows Gabrielle to remain in the apartments with him because it's not improper. It allows her to basically inherit Adelaide's things and her art. And it allows her to basically continue to work as an artist because she can work alongside Vincent in his studio. And she does. She has a career after Adelaide dies in 1803.
01:10:49.980it's such a sad story but it's also a really beautiful story like they supported each other
01:10:57.620they had respect for each other elizabeth comes back to france and has she's had to divorce her
01:11:03.840husband they are estranged she's estranged from her daughter who there's all these sweet sweet
01:11:09.960paintings of her with her little daughter that you often see in mother's day cards well
01:11:13.380she makes a marriage that elizabeth doesn't like and dies alone of syphilis
01:11:17.960and her mother abandons her um because she made a bad choice and she you know lives the rest of her
01:11:25.360life celebrated and alone what's better i don't know yeah yeah it's the way that their lives well
01:11:35.300just they were set up as these rivals which they kind of were but also just like how their lives
01:11:40.360are so different even to the end is really interesting to the end to the end i mean and
01:11:44.620Elizabeth lives a long, long life and makes so much work.
01:11:48.920And I really need to stress that she is not the villain of the story.0.96
01:17:58.340She does a bunch of portraits of men of the National Assembly who have power of life and death over her and Vincent.
01:18:04.280so she's very schemey that way but she she on the other hand is extremely straightforward like you
01:18:12.360don't we have no evidence that she was underhanded toward elizabeth or tried to undermine her career
01:18:17.180or gossiped against her or like we don't have any evidence of that so again i found it her hard to
01:18:24.700her i think she's very savvy i think she's an eight on the savvy meter but scheming i'm just
01:18:31.180not sure i feel like am i pressing it too closely i would do like a five is where i would go for0.80
01:18:36.820scheming because that balances out like she had good schemes but then she also failed to read the
01:18:41.240room and so it balances out to be kind of just over and over again it balances each other out
01:18:47.060like there's some stuff there but then okay i like that yeah that's where i would put her there
01:18:51.900because yeah it's like it's admirable you know when she fought for like women to be in the royal
01:18:58.880academy and stuff but it's also like not the time or the place adelaide like this is not the person
01:19:05.100to be pissing off right now like yes exactly exactly and just the unwillingness to turn her
01:19:11.720back on it's so dangerous it's like combustibly dangerous to hold on to that painting i mean
01:19:18.000thank god she gives it up when they ask her to and doesn't try to like hide it or like to me
01:19:23.200you saw a lot of that in the french revolution and that kind of scheminess that would get your0.68
01:19:28.000head cut off i mean vincent's sister is executed for a completely trumped up crazy thing so she
01:19:33.720does know like and many artists were as well um yeah like ride this wave as long as you can but0.88
01:19:43.660you better know when to yeah no and so like compared to madame du barry for instance like
01:19:49.120she did eventually read the room where madame du barry truly never did no my gosh but they did
01:19:55.900have a similar um thing of like this is gonna pass and i'm sure lots of people thought that
01:20:00.820because why would you think our entire society is going to completely change like like no one
01:20:05.580would think that when it's happening yeah but they both had a sort of optimism past the point
01:20:10.600of where you'd think where that's a smart way to be both of them i'm you know what i'm gonna i want
01:20:16.740to do significance last because i think that'll be such a good discussion so we're going to move
01:20:20.340onto the sexism bonus and this is where we give points for how much did sexism hold her back i
01:20:26.620feel like a lot and yet she did get into the real academy exactly the interesting thing about the
01:20:34.120sexism part is it held her back in so many ways uh in her lifetime and posthumously um because0.70
01:20:42.140art history erases her as well um because there can only be one woman and also we're not that1.00
01:20:47.380interested in women artists. I mean, you know, so that's huge. But what's fascinating to me about1.00
01:20:52.900her is that, you know, there's a difference between men and patriarchy. And men were great
01:21:00.720for Adelaide. She had amazing teachers. Her father was actually quite decent to her. Her friendship0.85
01:21:06.820and whatever it was with Vincent was key. She had these men who supported her throughout her
01:21:13.060lifetime and her career. It happened because of the support of men. And I find that so heartening
01:21:18.400and lovely. Was the entire system of like just the most structural patriarchy possible? Yes.
01:21:25.200And so it's only men who can undermine it. It's kind of like women winning the right to vote.0.96
01:21:30.000It required men to vote for women to get the vote. So individual men were great for her. Sexism,0.79
01:21:37.340very bad for her. Yeah. Well, the fact that she initially, even just the fact it's like,1.00
01:21:43.060eventually she got the training she wanted, but it was, well, we can train you to be a
01:21:47.380miniaturist. Like that's what we're able to do for you, which, because her father allowed that.
01:21:51.620And like the, the teachers did that. I mean, even just the whole function of the Royal Academy
01:21:56.180where it's like, well, we can only have four women. Oh, you can't have an apartment because1.00
01:22:00.160you have female students. So it's like, that's the patriarchy that was. Entirely, entirely.1.00
01:22:04.740I mean, the, in terms of sexism, you couldn't ask for a system more set up to make it impossible1.00
01:22:12.160for women to succeed, including posthumously into art history. So where would you put that0.82
01:22:17.680on a zero to 10? I decided nine. Yeah. Cause if we're looking at the patriarchy, not the like
01:22:23.280individual men who were good to her, you know, hashtag not all men of the 18th century France.
01:22:28.600Sure. Yes. But the system itself is just like really horrible as was Western art history
01:22:36.820for a long time yeah so i mean she did what she did like and that's why we i have this category
01:22:42.860it's kind of like how much more could she have done if she didn't have to spend so much of her
01:22:46.200time dealing with patriarchy and it's like i think a lot like how many giant history paintings0.99
01:22:51.640could she have been commissioned to do if like women were allowed to do that and hello she's
01:22:56.580not able to win the prix de rome i mean vincent goes and spends four years in rome doing nothing0.59
01:23:03.660but studying classical art you can't you can't make that up scrambling on your own trying to
01:23:09.520figure it out the barrier to becoming a great artist is impossibly high yeah not to mention
01:23:19.200she wasn't allowed to study the nude which is required it's requirement of of a history painting
01:23:24.860to have access to the new body and she can't go to she doesn't have she can't join the royal
01:23:30.960Academy classes. She can't, she's not supposed to study for the male nude. Did she ever paint
01:23:36.140a man's body or just men portraits? Um, well, she would have painted men's bodies in that
01:23:44.060history painting, right? So that's why women are allowed portraiture, right? You don't have to0.99
01:23:48.120have the whole body. She does show the whole body in some portraits of men. Um, I would say two0.58
01:23:53.000things. One is that we have a lot of evidence now that women just got around it one way or another.0.99
01:23:57.120I mean, the most obvious way is the one that was for hundreds of years. They use plaster casts or classical sculpture or even neoclassical sculpture of their time or other ways. And I posit in the book, maybe even a son helped her. He was teaching her oil painting. He had a body.0.86
01:24:19.140And this is someone who I might be doing an episode about later.
01:24:43.920If you look at like a Michelangelo female nude, they don't look like women.0.90
01:24:48.440um so yeah that would not surprise me oh yeah you should do angelica kaufman oh yeah yeah no
01:24:54.680she's very very trendy for a while but i just when i read that detail i was like i never thought0.97
01:24:58.540about that but the whole like the women i mean that's partly why women are restricted from being0.82
01:25:03.120history painters it's bad for their morals yeah to see a nude man oh my gosh yeah that would
01:25:09.140although just to be clear they are seeing art yeah it's filled with nudity yeah so it's like
01:25:15.740it's you know it's weird art is weird man okay the final category and i feel like i know where
01:25:21.180you're gonna head with this but i want to have this discussion is the significance her significance
01:25:26.460and this is um her significance both as a historical figure like as a woman who kind of
01:25:33.060like broke some barriers and was fighting for other people but also as an artist and just as
01:25:37.740in her legacy and she's not as well remembered as elizabeth but that doesn't mean that she's
01:25:43.900not significant. So where, how would, what are your thoughts on that? As the, as the person who
01:25:48.360spent years, years, decades thinking about her. Yeah. I know it's hard for me because it's like,
01:25:54.900I'm like the, you know, I'm like the crazy Taylor Swift Stan who like, you know, knows everything
01:26:00.320and loves everything about her. I'm definitely that person. Um, so if I were, you know, for
01:26:05.480myself to me, her significance is a 10, right? She is the first artist to depict herself with
01:26:13.200women's students. She is one of the first women who does not come from an artistic background to
01:26:21.000make her way to the highest level of art. She is a woman who speaks out for other women. She is
01:26:28.480an incredibly accomplished painter and artist, despite everything arrayed against her. I love
01:26:36.020her work. I love her story. That said, she does not have a large oeuvre because she didn't make
01:26:42.860that much work she was ill the last years of her life the things we were talking about she had to
01:26:48.040really struggle to get the training that she needed to create work so and because napoleon0.86
01:26:55.040basically makes it very difficult for women artists although he does open up the salons so
01:26:59.760women can uh now can show work salons are open to everyone not just people who are part of the
01:27:04.760institute de france so there are a lot of women artists but um france doesn't have a great history
01:27:10.360of important women artists until much later in the 19th century. So her legacy is not great as
01:27:15.840an artist. Her, um, her oeuvre is not huge. Uh, so when you talk about significance, it kind of
01:27:22.480depends on what you mean, but I think as a, as a, as a historical figure, her significance is very
01:27:30.780high. I would give her an eight or a nine. I'm going to round it up to nine because there's
01:27:36.380so much stacked against her i'm gonna do some quick math which is not my strong suit but i0.55
01:27:42.900want to oh lord me either this is gonna be just pulling up my calculator um because this is more
01:27:49.220than i have fingers to kind of so this is a 32 32 out of 40 which in terms of my scale and all the
01:27:56.600people i've talked about anything above 30 is very notable i would say in the history of art
01:28:01.680she is very notable as a woman artist. In terms of her work, what she would have hoped for,
01:28:09.900she was not able to achieve. But it's kind of like, she has two or three masterpieces that are
01:28:17.320phenomenal. I just want to say about Self-Portrait with Two Pupils,
01:28:22.600it was offered to the Louvre, you know, as a donation to the Louvre by Vincent's heirs,
01:28:27.180And they turned it down as a work of no value. Like, what would we do with this work of no value? And now it's considered one of the most important paintings in the Metropolitan Museum of Art's 18th century collection.
01:28:39.700What was the one you said that recently sold for like, much more than a second price?
01:28:43.460No, that's a pastel. That's a pastel called Madame Mitoire and Her Children. And it was
01:28:48.920acquired by the Getty in Los Angeles for six or seven times over its bidding estimate. And it's
01:28:57.720really notable because it shows, you know, just how significant her work and her place in art
01:29:03.720has become. But also that depiction was the first depiction of a contemporary woman nursing
01:29:10.820breastfeeding in the salon. So it has this important place. So there's that painting,
01:29:16.180there's this painting with her, with her two students, like always elevating these women0.89
01:29:21.440and women's work and the things that women do to the level of high art. And that is what makes her
01:29:28.960so important as an artist and a painter and a woman and historical figure. I just wanted to
01:29:34.040give you just some scale of where, what it, what it means for her to have a 32 on the scale, like
01:29:38.300who, who is where Sally Hemings also 32. Yes. I think in terms of just like a woman whose story
01:29:45.320has been whose life was so, well, I mean, Sally Hemings a whole other, in a whole other way. And
01:29:51.020yet they, they were both in France at the same time, but just like the patriarchy and how society
01:29:56.000was built up so they could not thrive. Yes. And how they're being recognized now for what they
01:30:01.620have, who they were, what they've done. And so that is huge, huge, huge, huge. And the thing
01:30:07.420that amazes me and excites me about people like Sally Hemings, about like Libby Guillard, Adelaide,
01:30:14.260is you change the future by knowing their stories. You change, like when we know more about the past,
01:30:21.960it changes who we are and how we see the world and the choices that we make it changes everything
01:30:28.820it's it's really exciting and that's why what you're doing is really important it's important
01:30:33.960these stories have a lot of power yeah i think that looking at these stories especially
01:30:39.000the stories of people whose stories have not been shared or who have not been known
01:30:43.740like working class people poor people like women especially is what i'm focusing on yeah it's just
01:30:50.960if you look at history like the history of the french revolution and it's like robespierre
01:30:55.620you've got like marie antoinette who we're gonna get to but i mean like they're these
01:30:59.080larger than life figures but then it's like but what about the people who are there living every
01:31:03.700day and like most people there yeah well adelaide was there she's just like all i want is to be a
01:31:08.760painter get these commissions like get an apartment in the louvre and she's living her life while
01:31:13.160these huge world events are happening around her and i think that's relatable to us also like
01:31:16.920living through the last 10 years of like society where it's like i'm just doing a podcast and it's
01:31:23.680like major world events keep happening and i'm like well i'm just trying to do my podcast so
01:31:27.960i'm like it's relatable to me that she's like i just want to finish my painting like this is this
01:31:31.780is what i'm doing i have dreams yeah exactly and you're ambitious and she was ambitious and to hold
01:31:38.820on to that even when the world is going to hell although i mean i have to say like although i
01:31:43.240think the last 10 years have been absolutely insane especially as an american it's super
01:31:46.440terrifying and overwhelming. And at the same time, when you know about history, it's like there have
01:31:52.760been a lot of these times. It's hard. Like life, history is hard. You don't know what's going to
01:31:59.220happen. And it gives me a lot of hope and a lot of courage when I look at the past. You know,
01:32:06.140I want to keep doing my work. I know it's valuable. I know it matters. Even if compared to the
01:32:12.380significance of world events it might not seem like it does emily dickinson kept writing poems
01:32:17.440thank god she did it just having lived through the past 10 like this is where i've been taking
01:32:25.440my history work more seriously too in the last 10 years but also the world has been chaos but
01:32:30.960then that's where i can kind of understand the history better and what and the importance of
01:32:35.260what people were doing it's like not everybody was a soldier on the battlefield and not everybody
01:32:39.580was like people are just having their their lives and their dreams and their goals and their
01:32:44.880ambitions despite the fact that the country they're living in is the midst like Adelaide
01:32:49.480it's like oh the the reign of terror is happening she's like well but on a day-to-day basis she's
01:32:54.520like well I guess I'll just keep working on my painting because like what else am I gonna do
01:32:57.780like right I mean you're keeping your head down you have to hold on to it and and keeping your
01:33:05.580head down working yeah so i don't know it's it's relatable in a different way than if i was doing
01:33:12.960this reading i mean when i was when i was researching and reading so much about the
01:33:19.060french revolution during the pandemic and it's so dark i mean the french revolution it's like
01:33:25.740oh yeah the opening ceremonies of the olympics and there's like haha there's marie antonette
01:33:31.040without a head spreading blood like haha if you read the stories it's horrific these were real
01:33:37.800people it's horrific I mean it was so terrifying when I was reading all this in the midst of
01:33:45.2802020 and we know how it turned out like we're a fine here we are but we didn't know it was going
01:33:51.260to be yeah like we didn't know and I have to say also as an American like you know one of the0.99
01:33:58.740terrifying turns that happens in French history is women lose all these rights. They lose them0.97
01:34:03.180very suddenly. And they go from being real players in French government, in French intellectual
01:34:09.920circles, in French art, to really being second-class citizens. French women are some of the0.99
01:34:15.420last to receive or to get the vote, for example, in the 20th century. It lasts. That pushing back0.98
01:34:23.220against women's rights lasts for a century or more. And so to experience Roe v. Wade being
01:34:30.800overturned in the United States while I was working on this book, too, it's like, it's very
01:34:34.100scary. You see, things can change in a heartbeat. They can change so quickly. It's, yeah, man. But
01:34:42.300they can change in both directions. Yeah. Well, and then you've got people like Adelaide
01:34:46.640and Madame du Barry, who are just kind of like, this is going to work out. This is going to work
01:34:51.300out yeah I mean that's where she was a little too yeah at what point are you just like let's
01:34:59.600pack up my canvases and like go to England like yeah but I don't think they could have no Madame
01:35:05.740de Berry's in a completely different situation maybe they could have I don't know yeah you got
01:35:09.660to wonder about Vincent like his sister's guillotined like but also you can't just escape
01:35:14.860I mean they're famous they're well-known people like true they'll also be stopped I don't know
01:35:18.920I don't know it's it's complicated it's complicated yeah well it's the same I like we're talking
01:35:25.280talking but I just want to say it's every in Canada in Canada every time there's an American
01:35:29.600election there's always this like sort of meme of people like oh I'll just move to Canada I'll
01:35:34.380just move to Canada I know where it's just like that's not an option for everybody like you can't
01:35:37.720just if your state has shitty laws like lots of people can't leave for anyone okay both my kids
01:35:42.440went to college in Canada it's you can't just go to Canada it's another country okay yeah it's0.51
01:35:48.920you need a visa. You need a passport that will allow you to go in and stay. I don't know what
01:35:54.520when people talk about that. I'm like, what are you talking about? Yeah. And I mean, frankly,
01:35:58.540things are not great here either. So right, exactly. I mean, the world is the world. That's
01:36:02.520a that is a fantasy. I will say, though, both my kids were in Canada during the pandemic. And I did
01:36:09.320feel like they were safer than here. So that's, that's maybe my fantasy. But, but you know,
01:36:15.880we're living, we're living in history. Yes. We're living in history. And the thing about history is
01:36:23.220you don't know how things are going to turn out. So I really, really need to say despair is not an
01:36:30.080option. Despair is not an option. Keep working and this work matters. Well, and thank you so
01:36:36.660much for joining me on the podcast. I'm glad that I've radicalized you into being a listener of my
01:36:41.040podcast now yes I love it well especially like we're doing this time period that you're very
01:36:46.540familiar with so I think that's a great it's so fun for me yeah I can't wait to learn more of
01:36:52.220about Britain because I really that's like my black hole yeah well and I'm opposite like I'm
01:36:57.860learning all this stuff about France I've I've the fact that everyone's called Marie and Louis
01:37:01.020I was just like I don't have time for that I don't have time for that and I'm just like oh my god I
01:37:04.500have to learn it so I'm having people like you teach me and that's great that's much more palatable
01:37:09.040than reading some like old academic books.
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