Artists predicting the future in their paintings. Predictions in art - Knowledge Hypermarket

Posted November 20, 2013

Today you have a rare opportunity to travel back many years. You will see how humanity imagined the 21st century long before the advent of computers, cell phones and even electricity.

Film and television: no chance of success

In late 1925, Sam Warner (one of the four founding brothers of Warner Bros. Entertainment) purchased his own broadcast radio station. Inspired by her work, he suggested to his brother Harry that he also use the recorded voice in films, synchronizing the audio with the movements of the actors on the screen. At that time, the cinema was no longer completely silent, but the films used only unsynchronized sound.

At the suggestion of his brother Harry, Warner gave an amazing phrase: “Who the hell cares what the actors are talking about there?”. Just two years later, Warner Bros. presented The Jazz Singer - the first film in which the audience could hear the voices of the actors.

Unfortunately, however, the brothers themselves missed its premiere due to Sam's death. The one who first gave the idea to make such a film.

For some reason, not everyone believed in the prospects of television either. So one of the leaders of the studio 20th Century Fox Darryl Zanuck (Darryl Zanuck) in 1946 said: "Television will not be able to hold out on the market for more than six months. People will just get tired of staring at a plywood box every night."

By the way, at that time, television was about to become a mass phenomenon. For example, in our country, the Moscow television center on Shabolovka from March 1, 1939 broadcast regular programs for two hours four times a week.

How artists of the past saw the future

Arthur Radebo: the future is closer than we think

Many artists of the last century, inspired by the rapid (as it seemed then) development of science and technology, tried to prove to everyone else with their works that “the future is closer than we think”. This is the title artist Arthur Radebaugh gave to a series of drawings that were published between 1958 and 1962.

The drawings-comics contained many interesting ideas and concepts. For example, Arthur envisioned the future of fully automated farmland, where crops would be grown under the control of multiple sensors, watering systems, and so on.

Some of the futuristic predictions were made by the artist for a reason. So, for example, in one of the drawings, the author shows that in the future cars can be repainted in a matter of minutes using electromagnetic guns. Such an opportunity should have appeared due to new materials that were supposed to be used in the construction of new cars.

And it's not exactly fantasy. Similar prospects were mentioned at that time by D.S. Harder (D.S. Harder), vice president of Ford. He hinted that cars could soon appear that would be resistant to pollution, as well as have other amazing properties, such as being able to clean themselves of dust.

Postmen of the future must be equipped with jetpacks. Such a device, as time has shown, is not only difficult to implement, but also completely impractical. The few instances of such packs were too noisy, required a huge amount of fuel and, moreover, posed a real threat to the “flyer”, since it was very difficult to control them.

In the future, according to the artist, the car will become the main way of transportation for an ordinary person. Therefore, for convenience, it would be advisable to build something like shops for cars. They work, roughly, according to the McDrive principle - the driver drives up to a special parking lot and places an order for groceries, which are loaded into the trunk of the buyer along the “counters”. Most likely, Arthur Radebaugh did not suspect how unpromising such a project would be in the conditions of universal “motorization”. Only a dozen and a half cars are enough for a “traffic jam” to form at such a point of sale.

As for medicine, then Arthur almost guessed right. If we close our eyes to the technical details and leave only the essence of the prediction, then we can say that the artist practically foresaw laser therapy in his comic book, thanks to which very complex operations became possible, without blood and complications.

The educational institutions of the future must be overflowing with those wishing to acquire knowledge. Here the artist shows optimism. In his opinion, or rather, according to the forecasts of scientists whose ideas he embodied in drawings, distance learning will be actively used in the future. Automated systems should give and check assignments to students.

The next concept is especially interesting because it directly affects you and me. The artist suggested that Alaska and Russia would be connected by a direct highway that would pass through a tunnel along the bottom of the Bering Strait. It is unfortunate that since then the ideas about the construction of such a tunnel have not been translated into reality.

The artist also predicted in his drawings transport controlled by robots, hospitals in space, rotating buildings. He also confidently stated that a device would soon appear with which it would be possible to record any television programs, and then view them at a convenient time for himself. This miracle is called “television tape recorder”. In the future, it will be possible to read books directly from the ceiling, lying on the sofa. The projector system will display the image using microfilm. The main thing is not to fall asleep from such convenience.

Thoughts on Canvas: Cities of the Future as Seen by Ancestors

At the beginning of the last century, many manufacturers of cigarettes, confectionery and other things often put a postcard in the packaging. Colorful pictures could simply advertise the product itself, and they were also collected by collectors. So, for example, one of the cigarette manufacturers of that time, without too much modesty, stated that in the year 2500 in the city of the future (apparently, in London) there would be a factory producing this particular brand of tobacco.

Similar cards could also be found in goods sold in Russia. For example, in 1914, the Einem confectionery company (later the Krasny Oktyabr factory) produced a batch of Moscow in the Future sweets. Special postcards were enclosed in boxes with sweets - with views of Moscow after 200 years. These wonderful works were made by the Russian battle painter Nikolai Nikolaevich Karazin. There were comments on the back of each postcard.

And what do we see in these postcards-predictions? The Moscow River is now overloaded with merchant ships. Biplanes and monoplanes are in the air, a hydroplane takes off at the pier, and a commercial airship with the inscription “Einem” flies to Tula with a supply of chocolate. There are snowmobiles, cavalry and a policeman with a saber. However, some of what was predicted did come true: look, for example, at subway trains and traffic jams.

About how the New York of the future was supposed to look, you can learn, for example, from the works of artist Richard Rummel (Richard Rummel). In 1910, he painted futuristic illustrations of a city of skyscrapers, which were later used for postcard designs.

The American political magazine Harper's Weekly (A Journal of Civilization) has been published in New York since 1857. His staff included a talented cartoonist with German roots, Thomas Nast. His tasks included creating caricatures of politicians and all kinds of ridicule of the government apparatus. like these drawings.

However, there is an interesting episode in the work of this cartoonist. In 1881, he tried to portray what New York would be like many years later. The artist of the 19th century also had no doubt that this city would grow not only in breadth, but also upwards.

France 100 years later: artists' predictions

Man has always dreamed of conquering the air. This was almost his first desire when he realized that he could make progress with his own hands. He constantly tried, experimented, failed, and yet never lost optimism. The man believed that the conquest of the air element is a matter of time. And of course, in the future everyone will fly. This belief can be seen very well in the work of French cartoonists of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century.

All fly. Firefighters dressed as Batman put out the fire, and the unfaithful wife distracts her husband while her lover, like Carlson with a propeller on his back, flies through the open window.

Many of the futuristic illustrations from the late 19th century are by an artist named Jean-Marc Côté. Perhaps no one would ever have known about the work of this person if Isaac Asimov had not accidentally stumbled upon a large set of 50 postcards with a series of works by the French artist EN L’AN 2000 in 1985.

The famous science fiction writer, without hesitation, bought them, and a year later he released the whole book Futuredays: A Nineteenth Century Vision of the Year 2000. In it, Asimov analyzes each drawing and discusses why certain plots could come to mind to a person from another era .

Asimov has enough of his own predictions of the future, but when a talented futorologist conducts his own investigation of artifacts of the past, it's damn interesting.

So, for example, Jean-Marc in one of his works shows a real bomber, and in another - armored vehicles for battles. There are remote-controlled robots, submarines and many, many other ideas on the postcards.

Many of the plots of the paintings are shown in elements that were previously inaccessible to man. Under water, people play croquet, a bus pulled by a whale carries passengers along the ocean floor, and air battles take place above the water surface.

A look at space from the past

Almost all futuristic predictions now look naive and cause only surprise - how could you even just think that this is possible? The people of that time did not have the store of knowledge that we have. They had to think, improvise and think with the images that surround them. Perhaps that is why their recreated future often looked like their own world, in which people wear the same hairstyles and top hats, and the most complex cars still have an exhaust pipe.

Even if the creation of pictures of the future was taken very thoroughly, the result was still the same. For example, in 1935, the Soviet audience saw the film “Space Flight”, which was amazing for that time. It was a story about a group of Soviet scientists who travel to the moon. To make this film, consultations were held with Konstantin Eduardovich Tsiolkovsky himself.

That is why there are a lot of little things in the film that no one would have paid attention to at that time. The film shows the weightlessness experienced by crew members in space, while walking on the moon demonstrates a slight attraction. But at the same time, the rocket plane itself is more like an airship, the most fantastic aircraft of that time.

It is unlikely that anyone today has doubts about the fact that soon people will fly to Mars. What their first steps on the Red Planet will look like, most likely, we will see in the live broadcast mode. When this happens, what is seen on the screens can be compared with the illustration by George Bakaksa (George Bakacs), made back in 1964 for the book Rockets to Explore the Unknown (“Rockets explore the unknown”).

Or maybe everything is just logical? After all, creative people have a very developed imagination and imaginative thinking. So different visions come to them along with the winged Pegasus. And how to interpret them is already a matter for scientists or just ordinary people. Be that as it may, history knows at least three artists who became famous for their predictions. Moreover, these predictions really came true!

Albert Robida

He was born in the south of France in 1848. He did well as a child. As a teenager, he began to depict various illustrations and cartoons for periodicals. Already in these years, he showed a passion for two more things - travel and literature. After his book called The Twentieth Century came out, all sorts of rumors began. The fact is that, according to critics, the writer swung too far. In his work, Albert described what awaits people in the 20th century to the smallest detail. In addition, he supplied the book with his own illustrations. For example, the author described the plague in the form of AIDS and the Chernobyl accident. In addition - the creation and spread of nuclear weapons, the development of chemical science, the creation of artificial food. In the drawings, he often depicted such fabulous structures at that time as airships, the subway, a telephone scope, a phonograph, chemical artillery guns, underwater battleships and torpedoes. There are still unfulfilled predictions. But if all of the above came true, then it is quite possible that “due to the hectic haste of life in the 20th century, people will quickly grow old: at 45 they will look like 70-year-olds. Rejuvenation will take place under special caps...”.
After the First World War died down, Robida began to suffer from depression. The main reason is that his literary plots began to come true. He eventually burned all his diaries and died in 1926 at the age of 78. Only one note remained intact: “Intelligence and knowledge contribute to the development of cynicism, ingenious and technical inventions are used to harm humanity.”

Leonardo Da Vinci

This name is still on everyone's lips to this day - be it photographers, mathematicians, poets or people of other professions. Of course, first of all everyone knows him painting. And they are used to seeing his personality only in the role of a great master of fine arts. But at the same time, the sculptor, scientist, engineer-inventor, architect, mechanic, anatomist, botanist were also his professions. What can I say, he really was a genius. The ability to all these sciences manifested itself in him very early. And his father contributed in every possible way to the growth of his son's education. It got to the point that the child with his questions in mathematics baffled the teachers. Further more - he also managed to study music and played the lyre perfectly. Quotes that became prophetic at that time, of course, caused many to laugh. But now the smile somehow does not fit at all:

• People will talk to each other from the most distant countries and answer each other.


• It will be seen how the trees of the great forests of Taurus and Sinai, Apennine and Atlanta run through the air from east to west, from north to south; and they will carry great multitudes through the air. Oh, how many vows! Oh, how many dead! Oh, how many partings of friends, relatives! And how many will there be who will no longer see their land, nor their homeland, and who will die without burial, with bones scattered over different parts of the world.


• Those who die will be, after thousands of years, those who support many of the living at their own expense.

To the questions “Why and where do these fantasies come from?” the master either answered evasively and vaguely, or generally remained silent. In this way, Leonardo predicted the appearance of many things in the future. But people began to study his notes very late and learned about it only in the 19th century.

Any work of art is directed to the future. In the history of art, one can find many examples of artists warning their fellow citizens about an impending social danger: wars, splits, revolutions, etc. The ability to work is inherent in great artists, perhaps it is precisely in this that the main strength of art lies. Any work of art is directed to the future. In the history of art, one can find many examples of artists warning their fellow citizens about an impending social danger: wars, splits, revolutions, etc. The ability to work is inherent in great artists, perhaps it is precisely in this that the main strength of art lies.

Albrecht Dürer The German Renaissance painter and graphic artist Albrecht Dürer () created a series of engravings "Apocalypse" (Greek apokalypsis - revelation - this word serves as the name of one of the ancient books that contains prophecies about the end of the world). The artist expressed an alarming expectation of world-historical changes, which really shook Germany after a while.

Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse The most significant of this series is the engraving "Four Horsemen". Horsemen - Death, Judgment, War, Pestilence - rush furiously across the earth, sparing neither kings nor commoners. Swirling clouds and horizontal strokes of the background increase the speed of this frenzied gallop. But the archer's arrow rests on the right edge of the engraving, as if stopping this movement.

Etchings by F. Goya, paintings "Guernica" by P. Picasso, "Bolshevik" by B. Kustodiev, "New Planet" by K. Yuon and many others can be considered an example of predictions as the art of social change and upheaval. Etchings by F. Goya, paintings "Guernica" by P. Picasso, "Bolshevik" by B. Kustodiev, "New Planet" by K. Yuon and many others can be considered an example of predictions as the art of social change and upheaval.

"Guernica" by Pablo Picasso The reason for the creation of "Guernica" by Pablo Picasso was the bombing of the city of the country of bucks - Guernica. During the Spanish Civil War, on April 26, 1937, the Condor Legion, a volunteer unit of the Luftwaffe, made a night raid on Guernica. Painting "Guernica" by P. Picasso Several air bombs were dropped on the city, which caused a permissive fire, as a result of which a significant part of the city was destroyed and, according to various calculations, about a person was injured. The artist showed the brutal face of war, a reflection of that terrible reality in abstract forms, and it is still in our anti-war arsenal. In general, this picture perfectly conveys the tragedy of the heartlessness of people.

Bolshevik. B. Kustodiev In the painting "Bolshevik" Boris Mikhailovich Kustodiev () used a metaphor (hidden meaning), which for many decades has not been unraveled. For many years, this picture was interpreted as a solemn hymn to a staunch, firm spirit, unbending revolutionary, towering over the ordinary world, which he overshadows with a red flag soaring into the sky. Many events of the last decade of the XX century. made it possible to understand what the artist consciously or, most likely, unconsciously felt at the beginning of the century. Today this picture is filled with new content. But how the artists of that time managed to feel the coming social changes so accurately remains a mystery.

New planet. K. Yuon The new planet is Soviet Russia, the appearance of which shook the universe and shifted the luminaries from their paths. Tiny figurines of people thrown to the ground in horror or stretching their arms to the sky flooded with mystical light are called to remind that the fate of one person is insignificant against the backdrop of world cataclysms, one of which Yuon sees as the "October Revolution".

Unanswered Question In the art of music, an example of foresight is the piece for orchestra "The Unanswered Question" ("Space Landscape") by the American composer C. Ives (). It was created at the beginning of the 20th century. - at the time when scientific discoveries were made in the field of space exploration and the creation of aircraft (K. Tsiolkovsky). This piece, built on the dialogue of strings and woodwinds, has become a philosophical reflection on the place and role of man in the Universe.

Aristarkh Vasilyevich Lentulov () Ivan the Great Bell Tower

In the paintings "Moscow" and "St. Basil's" unprecedented, fantastic forces shift established forms and concepts, a chaotic shift of colors is conveyed by kaleidoscopic, fragile images of the city and individual structures that break into countless elements. All this appears before the audience as a moving, shimmering, sounding, emotionally saturated world. The wide use of metaphor helps the artist to turn ordinary things into vivid generalized images.

Fantastic books and films can surprise and give more information about the world of the future than real scientific discoveries. And the discoveries themselves in our time rarely cause public shock. Subconsciously, we are ready for almost everything - the image of the future, drawn in the mind, only receives confirmation.

There is a personal time machine in the head, shaped by art for centuries. The predictions of the classics of science fiction that have come true since the era of H. G. Wells remain on hearing. But the fantastic description of the objects of the future remains a game with the imagination. Artistic techniques of literature allow us to imagine even objects by which the author, perhaps, had in mind something completely different - the experience of a modern person will prompt the missing fragments.

Artists are in the least advantageous position. They need to illustrate the fantastic idea as accurately as possible, otherwise the magic of prediction will not work. The picture tightly captures the work of the imagination. It is all the more interesting to find out which canvases do not play a “guessing game” with the viewer, but visually correctly reflect the future.

Let's take a look at the most amazing works that predict the future with astonishing accuracy.

Real futurism

Not all paintings that now look like pure retrofuturism are fiction. The rocket-like car pictured above actually existed. This is a 1959 Cadillac Cyclone, created under the direction of Harley Earle, who was then vice president of the design bureau of General Motors. The double Cyclone was supposed to be a fully functional machine, designed not only for exhibitions, but also for real travel. In reality, he made only a few trips - the project was closed due to the high cost of engineering solutions. What is worth only one dome, covered with silver to protect against ultraviolet radiation - it opened automatically along with the doors and could be removed automatically in the luggage compartment.

The dream car was equipped with a 325-horsepower Cadillac V-8 engine. The flat 4-barrel carburetor worked without an air filter to reduce the height of the body, but there was a filtering air intake on the hood. Exhaust gases went through a double muffler located in the engine compartment immediately behind the engine and exited through the front fenders in front of the wheels. Even then, an autopilot was implemented in the car - the speed of movement and the position of the car on the road were regulated. The autopilot worked thanks to sensors that determined the location on the road using a special strip applied to the road surface. It was assumed that in the future such coverage would become ubiquitous and autopilots would work without fail in all cars.

In addition, the double nose fairings installed instead of the headlights had a radar system that warned of an obstacle on the road. A flashing LED indicator was lit on the dashboard, a special display showed the distance to the object and the length of the braking distance. In a critical situation, the automatic braking system should have worked. But information has not reached our days whether this system was implemented. Otherwise, this car, stuffed with futuristic engineering solutions, was far ahead of its time and looked more interesting than any fantastic posters.

Another poster that looks like an illustration of a science fiction story, and should, in theory, reflect only the designer's thoughts about the cars of the future. But in fact, we again see a very real car that was on the roads three years before the introduction of the Cadillac Cyclone.

The Firebird II concept car reflected the spirit of the space race era. It looked like an airplane, or even a spaceship, descended from the sky onto the road. In the future, such cars could become hybrid: they could easily drive on ordinary highways, and if necessary, take off into the air and continue to move as personal aircraft.

The body was entirely made of titanium. Firebird II received a 225 hp gas turbine power plant. and worked on kerosene. The cooler in the recuperation compartment reduced the exhaust temperature to 538 °C. An autopilot and an obstacle detection system were also implemented here. Firebird II could accelerate to 300 kilometers per hour. The car also received one of the world's first infotainment systems. It allowed not only to listen to the radio and watch programs on a tiny TV in the dashboard, but also to display some information about the state of the car, navigation data, tips and reminders.

General Motors had other "space" concept cars, but that's another story.

The flying car is one of the most frequently seen predictions about the future of transportation and a ubiquitous theme in science fiction. In the past, many futurists thought flying cars would be here soon. They say that in the next decades, individual transport, which will rid the world of traffic jams, will become available to everyone. As we know, even in 2017, a plane car that you can buy and put in a garage remains a dream. But there was an alternative - a frequent helicopter. Of course, not everyone can afford it, but this is an affordable dream, in many respects (flight range, compactness for storage and operation) corresponding to the ideas of ideal transport.

Animal dystopia

A polar bear lying upside down like a house cat, and a porter monkey... What's going on here anyway?

In 1926, the Galveston Daily News put an end to the diversity of the animal world. Literally, they wrote: “The ever-growing human need for more space will force wild animals to join already extinct species.” The article predicts that the animals will no longer exist in the wild and will only be found in zoos unless they are used as livestock or pets/service animals.

The article, which we have not lived to see yet, claims that rats and mice will be completely exterminated (along with mosquitoes and flies), and that cows will become so fat that they will move slowly like pigs.

Fortunately, the frightening prediction did not come true. On the other hand, there are trends in the world related to human impact on the environment, which do not completely dismiss this prediction.

Utopia about the suburbs and reality

First, let's look at a typical mistake of the past. Yes, in everything that concerns cities, predictors were wrong more often than ever. Practice has shown that cities change at a surprisingly slow rate.

Innovative American architect Frank Wright depicted the concept of Broadacre City in the early 1930s, one of the first designs for an "ecological city". No cars, noisy crowds, industrial buildings - everything is very similar to life in a quiet, calm suburb. The suburbs seemed utopian to people living in overcrowded, smoky cities. Wright believed that not only did people live much longer, on average, one to two inches taller due to better health, thanks to a quiet life in peaceful suburbs. In fact, the suburbs would be so beneficial to mankind that urban housing would be completely eliminated and the construction of high-rise block skyscrapers would become illegal.

But there are also reverse examples, when ideas about the architecture of the cities of the future are surprisingly accurate. In this frame from a 1930s sci-fi film, visionaries of the past depict New York City in the 1980s. 250-story buildings, wide streets with multi-lane traffic, multi-level traffic - very close to the current state of the city.

Closer than we think

In the 1950s and early 1960s, artists created an idealized version of the future. Illustrator Arthur Radebo in 1958 came up with the comic book Closer Than We Think, in which he showed his vision of a bright life for future generations. The beginning of the space age brought a touch of optimism to the years of paranoia and fear of nuclear war. In Radebo's work, there was no place for the communist threat, killer robots and aggressive aliens.

The highway connecting Russia and the USA. Such a project really existed.

A snowplow that burns through the snow in its path. Pure fantasy.

A house that rotates with the sun to get more energy. Now solar panels are doing this task more efficiently.

However, it should be noted that, to a certain extent, the forecast came true - instead of the house itself, in some energy solutions, the blades of the turbine of a steam engine operating under the influence of sunlight rotate, as a result of which electricity is produced. A steam engine is also a way to accumulate solar energy: excess heat is used to heat water in pressurized tanks - in this state, the heated water does not evaporate, but accumulates heat.

Indoor stadiums serving various events - here a hit in 10 out of 10.

Cars powered by solar energy. Now there are a lot of such projects. In 1982, inventor Hans Tolstrup drove the solar-powered Quiet Achiever across Australia from west to east at a speed of just 20 km/h. In 1996, the winner of the IV International Solar Car Rally drove 3,000 km at a speed of almost 90 km/h, and in some sections - 135 km/h.

With all the obvious successes of solar vehicles, this forecast can hardly be called 100% come true. Yes, the testers set many world records for range and speed of movement, but such machines remained the lot of enthusiasts. With our current technology, a conventional gasoline internal combustion engine remains the more efficient solution. Solar panels can't provide enough power for a typical day-to-day car. In addition, in regions with a small number of clear days, light energy remains only an auxiliary source of electricity.

computerized train.

Radebo became one of the most famous futurist artists. He published a comic about the future every week from 1958 to 1962. And even earlier, in 1940, Radebaugh painted a series of advertising posters for the Bohn Aluminum & Brass Corporation. The images from these posters not only remain among the most expressive examples of futuristic graphics of their time, but also show the world of today with amazing accuracy.

Accurate Prediction

Many works even in this selection can be called a true prediction only with a caveat. However, among the millions of paintings, comics, posters, illustrations created before the middle of the 20th century, there were those that do not raise doubts about their futuristic authenticity.

This is how Arthur Radebo depicted the ocean liner of the future in the 1940s.

Stadium for a huge number of people.

Futuristic harvester.

Motorcycle with an aerodynamic body.

Multistory aircraft.

And a few dozen more similar posters.

Comic Book World: Dark and Real Futurism

The moon landing, pictured in 1929.

Not only Radebo drew comics about the future. Works published over 80 years ago, between 1929 and 1939, predicted life in the 21st century with frightening accuracy, including plastic surgery, moonwalking, artificial organs.

Artists predicted that in the future, scientists would develop machines that read minds and project them onto a screen. Advances in the field of neural interfaces have made these fantasies a reality.

The 1939 comic strip World Without Death featured a patient with an artificial heart.

A 1939 comic book cover depicts a scientist cloning a young woman's body in his laboratory.

french futurism

A series of illustrations En L'An 2000 ("Year 2000") was prepared for the Paris International Exhibition of 1900. For many years they forgot about it, but in 1986 the writer Isaac Asimov came across the drawings. He prepared the famous book Days of the Future: A Vision of the Year 2000 by People of the 19th Century. Now a complete selection of drawings can be found on the Wikimedia Commons website - some of these predictions can be called very accurate, or close to reality.

The Frenchman Albert Robidot (picture of a video telephone from his 1894 book) was both a science fiction writer and a talented artist. In the 1880s, he wrote a trilogy of novels about the future, becoming the ancestor of steampunk. Often ordinary phrases from his books can be interpreted as gloomy prophecies, for example: "What an amazing sight for our descendants will be a live horse - a sight completely new and full of the greatest interest for people who are used to flying through the air!"

Robidot predicted (and in places illustrated) submarines, tanks, battleships, aviation, videophones, distance learning, online shopping, intercoms, video intercoms, videodiscs, video libraries, television, reality shows, video surveillance systems (including the concept of Big Brother), chemical weapons , bacteriological weapons, gas masks, nuclear weapons, man-made disasters, skyscrapers, drywall, social changes (emancipation of women, mass tourism, environmental pollution), other things and phenomena.

Many technologies that seemed like a wonderful (or terrifying) future 50, 100 or 200 years ago are now taken for granted.

An August 1939 article titled "Electric House of the Future" from Popular Mechanics magazine described housing that, by today's standards of technology, cannot even compete with a typical "smart home".

Fantastic illustrations created by people like Klaus Burgle, Kurt Roschl and dozens of other artists remain unrealized fiction to this day. Perhaps the reason is that too little time has passed. The shape of the future has already been drawn, and all that remains for us is to realize it, if possible in bright colors.

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Artists of all times have tried to imagine the future in their paintings and sculptures. Today we call this direction retrofuturism. We have collected works by contemporary artists who will become retrofuturists in a couple of decades.

Simon Stalenhag

Swedish artist Simon Stalenhag has been fascinated by the beauty of his native landscape since childhood. In his youth, he painted landscapes in the spirit of his favorite compatriot artists. But when the artist grew up, robots, hadron colliders and giant flying tractors invaded the rural idyll of his paintings. However, people in this alternative world live everyday lives and seem to be completely unsurprised by the curiosities surrounding them.

“In the 1950s, the government launched a huge nuclear accelerator and research laboratory just a few kilometers from Stockholm. The laboratory is located underground and produces a large number of experimental technologies. Up until the 1970s, everything goes well, but then the system begins to collapse. Bad things start to happen. The images on my website show the life of the people of that world, and how it was affected by the fiasco of a gigantic scientific project. No one knows how it will all end, ”says Simon about what is happening in the world he invented.

Greg Brotherton

Sculptor Greg Brotherton depicts a world of oppression and slavery in his mechanical works. His sculptures depict faceless, small people chained to their workplace and performing monotonous, meaningless actions. In his youth, Greg read the works of Orwell and Kafka, which corresponded to his then mood. Until now, the artist looks at the world around him through the eyes of a gloomy teenager filled with fear of the future.

Leo Egiarte

Los Angeles-based artist Leo Eguiarte transforms old circuit boards into pessimistic illustrations of the future. His works, made in acid colors, deal with the problem of fixing a person on material values. The artist's favorite colors - purple, turquoise and emerald - are present in all of Egiarte's paintings, forming an image of a synthetic future in combination with geometric shapes. The Synthetic Dream series addresses the problem of power usurped by a minority and invites the viewer to think about how our decisions and the way we interact with reality can change civilization.

Yang Yongliang

Chinese artist Yang Yongliang uses digital collages to demonstrate the destructive impact of industrialization on nature. Such an inhospitable and gray world will be if humanity continues to recklessly rebuild the environment and litter the planet with the waste of its activities.