A light, but no less interesting debate broke out on social networks after a peculiar story surfaced related to the Internet and the famous painting “Expected” (Die Erwartete) by the Austrian artist Ferdinand Georg Waldmüller. At work, an 1860s woman holds a device she is looking at, which many interpret as a mobile phone that resembles a telephone. iphone.
This is not the first time this has happened. One such case occurred when Apple CEO Tim Cook visited the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam and claimed that the man in the 346-year-old Dutch painting was holding an iPhone. We are talking about the painting by Pieter de Hooch “A man delivering a letter to a woman in the hall of the house”, painted in 1670, a common communication in the 17th century: a letter (as the title of the work indicates).
So the answer is simpler than you think: these are books that 162 years ago could have been very small, or even letters.
According to art historians, the woman in the Waldmuller painting does not use an iPhone, but carries a prayer book with her. As explained Vice, Gerald Weinpolter, art agency CEO austrian paintings.at, a woman goes to church with a book in her hands.
“What strikes me most is the extent to which technological change has altered the interpretation of the painting and, in a certain way, has taken advantage of its entire context.”
“The big change is that in 1850 or 1860 all viewers would have identified the object in which the girl is engrossed as a hymnal or a prayer book. Today, no one could fail to notice the resemblance to the scene of a teenager engrossed in the social networks of his smartphone.
Source: Digital Trends
