Walter Crane was a versatile artist of the pre and post 1900 era, with a style of art that lived in the arts and crafts movement and worked backwards from there. In other words, his work was beautiful, but not modern in any way.
So it's a surprise to see this little cartoon sketch of his that shows the 'man of the future', a button presser that looks to me like a portrait of a blogger and/or tumblr guy plugged into his fancies.
Amazingly insightful! From the keyboard addiction to the Tim Burtonesque revival of the Mad-Hatter fashions, nearly everything he predicted was proved true. Next step: the bio-engineered limbs?
This is what I feel like sometimes, in female form. I love the outdoors, and I am too often "plugged in," rather than being outside in the weather. Hmm.. what to do about it? And this was 1900!
On the other hand, the image looks nothing like the Walter Crane art I've become familiar with, and I do owe that bit of knowledge to being "plugged in." So there is some benefit to utilizing the internet to absorb and internalize what we couldn't possibly experience first hand by reading all the books and visiting every museum.
I am posting these images with a non-profit and educational 'fair use' motive, regarding respective copyrights. Anyone downloading and using these images for any commercial use would be in violation of respective copyrights, and does not have my approval for such use.
My name is Thom Buchanan.
I'm an artist and photographer.
People are my favorite subjects to portray in art and photos. My wife (and studio partner) has called that my 'people skills', as I've been passionately creating portrait studies for many years.
I refer to myself as a pictorialist, a combination of image-making and journalist. Images are my life.
2 comments:
Amazingly insightful! From the keyboard addiction to the Tim Burtonesque revival of the Mad-Hatter fashions, nearly everything he predicted was proved true. Next step: the bio-engineered limbs?
Hi Thom,
This is what I feel like sometimes, in female form. I love the outdoors, and I am too often "plugged in," rather than being outside in the weather. Hmm.. what to do about it? And this was 1900!
On the other hand, the image looks nothing like the Walter Crane art I've become familiar with, and I do owe that bit of knowledge to being "plugged in." So there is some benefit to utilizing the internet to absorb and internalize what we couldn't possibly experience first hand by reading all the books and visiting every museum.
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