HORIZONS MURAL, "The Prologue and the Promise" [ High Res ]
Mitch 
click to enlarge
Remember leaving Horizons and seeing this Robert McCall highly detailed masterpiece? Boy, the future sure looks great. I can't wait to wear tight-fitting jump suits with my wife and kids and our dog, standing on a grass hill overlooking our cool-looking city.
Click on the image below for a high resolution version of this image. It may take a couple of minutes to fully load, for it is pretty large. I have yet to see another image of this mural on the web at such high quality. It's a scan from a print I once borrowed from a friend at WDI who has an amazing collection of EPCOT Center printed materials.
Here you see Robert McCall in action. It appears he has some help. I just noticed in the above high res image there are two signatures. One from Robert T. McCall and one from Louise McCall (his wife). Check out the smaller canvas of "The Prologue and the Promise" behind Louise- used for reference, no doubt. Anyone know where that smaller one is today??
Related links:
http://www.mccallstudios.com/index.html
http://mesaverdetimes.blogspot.com/
http://futureprobe.blogspot.com/2009/04/art-of-bob-mccall.html
Reader Comments (8)
Not sure where the original smaller reference "Prologue" painting is, but I do have one that was given to VIP guests on Opening Day that was printed in a limited run lithograph.
The original reference painting is sitting in the WDI Information Research Center (IRC) in Glendale.
I wonder where the mural is
Hi - longtime lurker, first time commenter here. Sadly, I never got to experience EPCOT center in its glory days - my first visit was in '01, and I'm most familiar with all of WDW in its current state as I'm a new season passholder. What a joy it would have been to see this mural in person...it really captures the vision of the park! Here's hoping they'll restore some of these gems from EPCOT's early years someday...(Hey! I can dream, right?)
I love this type of artwork. It shows that people of that generation had high expectations and a vision of a bright future ahead. I don't think there is anyone left on this planet that believes of a positive and Jetson's like future for the human race. It's like we have all just given up. Artwork like this is truly inspirational. As a HUGE Walt Disney World fan, These are the things I remember most as a child when visiting WDW. Disney Parks needs to treat each theme park as a Disney Character itself and not just a place to put Disney characters on display. The most memorable parts of WDW are the attractions that are unique to the parks and not from their collection of movies.
"It shows that people of that generation had high expectations and a vision of a bright future ahead. I don't think there is anyone left on this planet that believes of a positive and Jetson's like future for the human race. It's like we have all just given up. "
Not all. Have You?
We have a copy of this piece in the office of the Space Studies Institute. It is about 12x24 (ish) framed and with a penciled in note at the bottom "To my good friend Gerrard O'Neill..." Every time my young son comes to my work at the Mojave Spaceport (where XCor, ViirginGalactic, Orbital, Masten and StratoLaunch make their amazing 'for-us-people' futures quietly today... he slides a chair over and steps up to just stare at this.
Have hope.
But more than that, because Hope alone is worthless... if you think Walt and McCall and O'Neill worked on things that were truly important and that still are important than don't just wish... work on it yourself. Like they did. They were just people like you and me who simply refused to stop believing.
And they found something they could actually do, and they actually acted on it.
Life is short, do something important.
Best.
This mural was stunning! I remember going to Horizons growing up but didn't recall this picture. Do you know if anyone is selling prints?
I just saw a premiere of Tomorrowland last night and they had to have been inspired by the Horizons mural...even the movie poster is a reflection. I'm very glad I stumbled on your site yesterday before seeing the movie, it made my enjoyment of the film even greater. Thank you for sharing!
I wish I would have seen he original. I admire the optimistic view of the future. Americans believed science could solve all of man's problems at the time.