Although people of the 21st Century have seemingly been engulfed by their own form of revelry concerning smartphones, a painting of a woman with a smartphone, precisely in the year 1860, has created definitely more than a slight ripple. Taking into account some of the sketches of da Vinci, can it be conjectured that artists see and then make the viewers see what the future may be like!

Peter Russell, a retired officer from Glasgow, recently identified the smartphone in the painting – ‘The Expected One’ – by Austrian artist Ferdinand Georg Waldmüller that is on display at the Neue Pinakothek Museum in Munich. It seems that the woman in the painting is holding an iPhone in her hand. Her head turns towards the phone as if she is reading or writing something. According to Russell, he noticed the detail that went unnoticed for 157 years.

Russel told ‘Motherboard’ magazine: “What strikes me most is how much a change in technology has changed the interpretation of the painting and in a way has leveraged its entire context.”
He stressed: “The big change is that in 1850 or 1860, every single viewer would have identified the item that the girl is absorbed in as a hymnal or prayer book. Today, no one could fail to see the resemblance to the scene of a teenage girl absorbed in social media on their smartphone.”

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Published by Koushik Das

Koushik Das (born on May 16, 1976 in Kolkata) is a career journalist. Based in the Indian capital of New Delhi, Koushik writes mainly about foreign policies and current geopolitical issues, and rarely about other topics. His own political ideas are highly influenced by Antonio Gramsci, Louis Althusser, Michel Foucault, Michael Oakeshott and others. English philosopher and political theorist Oakeshott (Dec 11, 1901-Dec 19, 1990) says that “in political activity, men sail a boundless and bottomless sea. There is neither harbour for shelter nor floor for anchorage, neither starting-place, nor appointed destination. But we have to keep afloat”. (Rationalism in Politics, 1962) As a student of Political Science, Koushik loves to share his views on issues, which have great impacts on his thought process (and also on India, South Asia and of course on the global community), with his readers through his website – Boundless Ocean of Politics. By doing so, he tries to keep himself afloat. You will find some of his articles in https://inserbia.info/today/ (https://inserbia.info/today/author/kou_das13_i/), as he has been trying to assess the global geopolitics since 2003. You can also mail him at kousdas@gmail.com View all posts by Koushik Das