1860’s painting shows smartphone in modern interpretation

By Nick Heyman On Jul 16, 2023

If you’re a really long-time PhoneArena reader, you might remember the story about the time traveler that showed up at a Charlie Chaplin movie premiere in 1928 with a smartphone. Newsreel footage taken of the event showed a woman holding something up to her ear and talking into it as she was walking on the street. These days, this would be the unmistakable sign that the person was taking a call on her smartphone. Outside of her wardrobe, she looks like any modern woman walking while on a cellular call.

The only answer that made any sense was that the woman was using a hearing aid and back then, some of these devices had a form factor similar to a slab and were held up to the afflicted person’s ear. Of course, it still doesn’t explain why the woman was talking into the hearing aid unless she loved the sound of her own voice.

We passed along that story in 2010. Move ahead to 2023, and I’m still here! But more exciting and interesting than that is a painting from 1860 that shows a woman walking through a grassy field in a pose that today would be all too familiar. She appears to be clutching a smartphone in her two hands as she looks down at the device, perhaps to see replies to her latest posts on Twitter and Threads. If she is holding an iPhone, it could be the iPhone -147 Pro Max. Perhaps she’s Team Pixel in which case she’s rockin’ the Pixel -156 Pro.

Portion of “The Expected One” showing a woman in the modern “smartphone-reading” position

The painting and its eerie parallel to modern life was first spotted by various publications years ago including Motherboard. But we haven’t shared this yet with our readers who we thought might be interested in seeing how the smartphone era colors how we look at everything-including paintings completed over a century ago.

The painting, by artist Ferdinand Georg Waldmüller, is called “The Expected One.” Gerald Weinpolter, CEO of the art agency austrian-paintings.at, told Motherboard years ago, “The girl in this Waldmüller painting is not playing with her new iPhone X, but is off to church holding a little prayer book in her hands.” And sure, considering how old the artwork is, that makes a lot more sense than thinking that a painting from 1860 shows a woman carrying a smartphone in her hands.

It is interesting to note that when this painting first appeared, everyone would have seen it as a woman holding a prayer book. With the advent of new technologies, something as simple as a painting of a woman in a grass field can take on a new interpretation.

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