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A Look At Art From 1900 Depicting The 21st Century (Part The Second)
This time featuring images from Russia
Last week, I wrote an article about a series of drawings that were done in the late 19th century, early, early 20th century speculating about what life would be like in the 21st century. After some more research (and a lingering fascination) I learned that this kind of art is known as retrofuturism. There is an entire category of early science fiction drawings depicting life in the far future, post-Industrial Revolution.
I decided to take a brief jaunt down the retrofuturism rabbit hole and in doing so I unearthed another set of hand drawn scenes. This time, the art depicts life in Moscow in the distant future. These images were uncovered in Russia by a chocolate company that began repurposing the images on their candy bars.
The images depict a transformed Moscow still living under the yolk of the czarist regime and are thought to take place in the 23rd or 24th century. The exact date of the art and the artist (or artists) is unknown. They are speculated to have been drawn before the Russian Revolution.
Perhaps the art was destroyed in the communist purges. The images do depict a very noticeable czarist Russia. Images of a monarchy of the future would have been quashed by the communist…
