Once upon a time, magazines had such high budgets for illustrations that they could commission illustrators to muse about the end of the world.
For example, Life magazine paid artist Rockwell Kent to imagine four different scenarios for the end of life on earth. Life‘s editors explained that an artist’s interpretations “suggest reality much more forcefully than a scientist’s six-lettered formula:”
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| The loss of heat |
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| The loss of gravity |
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| Collision with a meteor |
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| Solar flares |
Coronet Magazine commissioned a similar set of speculations from illustrator Chesley Bonestell:
In the years following these illustrations, scientists discovered that the universe is expanding at an increasing pace, which points to a totally different ending. It now seems that the universe is likely to dissipate to a state of maximum entropy– a cold, empty void where individual subatomic particles become so spread out they will no longer be capable of sustaining life or heat. In the distant future, form will no longer exist.
Fortunately, today’s illustrators are up to the challenge of illustrating a formless, empty void. Some publications now substitute photographs for illustrations, but wish to imply that human creativity continues to play a role in the process. To achieve this result, they add pointless random squiggles around the photograph.
These are excellent illustrations of the dissipation of form at the end of the world.