Looking forward : $b a dream of the United States of the Americas in 1999Bird, Arthur
Science
Looking forward : $b a dream of the United States of the Americas in 1999
Bird, Arthur
Twentieth century -- Forecasts; United States -- Civilization
Painting, in 1999, had become a lost art, doomed, alas, never to
revive. The glorious canvases of the old masters were still highly
treasured. There still existed artists who threw their entire souls
into beautiful paintings, superb creations of their artistic minds,
true in every detail to nature. Although painting as a high art
still existed in 1999, yet, as a profession and a means of obtaining
a livelihood, it died very much after the manner of wood engraving,
when the half tone process was perfected and had come into general use.
In the year 1912, after many struggles and disappointments,
Prof. Deweyton, of the Montpelier, (Vt.) University, perfected the
process of color-photography. This coveted secret, at last, had been
wrested from nature. For centuries her beauties had been admired
but never had she consented to transfer her own original colors on
photographic plates and canvas.
When the art of color photography was perfected, the world then had
little use for [The Passing of the Artist.] easels, palettes and
painters. Nature became the Artist of the world and none dared to
dispute her sway. At first it was with a feeling of sadness that
the world parted with the art profession and its devotees, men and
women who had imparted to canvas the world's historic scenes, the
portraits of the world's great men, enchanting, noble women. The
works of these great artists had delighted the children of men for
many centuries. Raphael, Titian, Michael Angelo, Correggio, Guido,
and other famous artists, had bequeathed their glorious treasures
of art to a grateful world, and even color photographic pictures
done by nature's own hand cannot rob these eminent artists of an
iota of their fame. It was sad to think that after the discovery of
color-photography great artists would lose their prestige, for none
can rival nature in her own art.
This new process of Nature painting rendered to the world an invaluable
service by [The Chromo Affliction Subsides.] driving out of the
market a flood of cheap pictures and chromos of the most inferior
class; pictures that had crept into many homes simply because they
were cheap. These afflictions, too often paraded with flash moulding
on the walls of our homes, were driven out by color-photography. In
1950 the old-style chromos were rare; they quickly disappeared from
the habitations of men.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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