A journey through perspective pictures with M.C. Escher
Philipp Jedicke ct
April 27, 2018
Known for his perspective pictures and geometric lithographs, M.C. Escher is one of the best known graphic artists of the 20th century. His work is featured in his hometown, Leeuwarden, 2018 European Capital of Culture.
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M.C. Escher's twisted perspectives
A fascinating world traveler and master of illusion, M.C. Escher is the focus of "Escher's Journey," a new exhibition at the Fries Museum in Leeuwarden which includes lesser-known works by the famous artist.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/Kulturhauptstadt Leeuwarden-Fryslan/R. Van Vliet
'Castrovalva' (1930)
The large lithograph of this Abruzzo village is, along with "Atrani, Amalfi Coast" one of the many works that Maurits Cornelis Escher sketched on his trips to Italy and printed upon his return home to the Netherlands. Escher's travels through Italy impressed him so much that elements of the sketches he created there appearing repeatedly throughout his late work.
Image: The M.C. Escher Company, B.V.
'Nocturnal Rome: Small Churches, Piazza Venezia' (1934)
Shortly after their marriage in Viareggio, in 1924, Escher and his Italian wife Jetta moved to Rome, where their two sons, Georg and Arthur, were born. As the fascists gained more influence in Italy, the family moved to Switzerland in 1935. In the following years, Escher traveled across the Mediterranean on a cargo ship and in the process, revisited the Alhambra.
Image: The M.C. Escher Company, B.V.
'Day and Night' (1938)
While visiting the Alhambra in Granada, southern Spain, Escher came into contact with Moorish art for the first time and became fascinated by the medieval mosaic art. As a result, Escher busied himself with a technique that filled in the surfaces over a series of uniform shapes. In this woodcut, ducks fly over a Dutch river landscape.
Image: The M.C. Escher Company, B.V.
'Cycle' (1938)
On this lithograph entitled "Cycle," there is stylistic movement that is even more noticeable here than in "Day and Night." In addition to strong contrasts, the recurring geometric shapes of his later works and the stair motifs can be seen here.
Image: The M.C. Escher Company, B.V.
'Metamorphosis II'
The pictures in the "Metamorphosis" series are considered his masterpieces. In the narrow and elongated work, "Metamorphosis II," geometric shapes are transformed into animals, which in turn become cubes, buildings and finally into the village of Astrani. At the end, the village becomes a chessboard before the image finally returns to one consisting of geometric forms.
Image: The M.C. Escher Company, B.V.
'Relativity' (1953)
After 1946, Escher turned increasingly to perspective pictures and in the years following, those prints became some of his best-known works. Playing with perspective is a difficult task and Escher had to work for weeks on some prints to give apparent realism to his sketches. Only at second glance is the impossibility of the construction made clear.
Image: picture-alliance/ United Archives/TopFoto
'Convex and Concave' (1955)
In "Convex and Concave" Escher lets both types of surface curvature meet. At several points in the picture, one face appears concave, then convex, and vice versa. Playing with perspectives creates geometric constructions that would otherwise be impossible in reality.
Image: The M.C. Escher Company, B.V.
'Belvedere' (1958)
In this lithograph, Escher once again depicts a paradoxical building. In the background are the peaks of the Abbruzzi, which Escher had visited in his youth. The upper part of the lookout tower is at a different angle than the rest. The middle floor's front pillars support the back of the top floor, while the back pillars seem to support the front.
Image: The M.C. Escher Company, B.V.
Fries Museum in Leeuwarden, Escher's hometown
Leeuwarden in the Dutch North Friesland is, along with the Maltese city of Valletta, a 2018 European Capital of Culture. Maurits Cornelis Escher was born here in 1898, the son of a hydraulic engineer. The exhibition "Escher on the Road" ("Escher op reis") runs from April 28 to October 28, 2018. In parallel to this, there are events all year related to Escher's art.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/Kulturhauptstadt Leeuwarden-Fryslan/R. Van Vliet
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A staircase that leads back to itself; waterworks that move towards and away from the viewer at the same time; an impossible box: M.C. Escher's artwork featuring perspective impossibilities is world famous. To the average eye, Escher is a great artist. But for art theorists, Escher was never easy to classify.
Among professionals, Escher was considered a mathematical graphic artist rather than an artist in the classical sense of his era, a consequence of his great fascination for perspective and geometrical shapes. So instead of being invited to lecture on art, he was often asked to speak on mathematics – something he claims to know little about.
Many works on display for the first time
Born in 1898 in the North Frisian area of the Netherlands, M.C. Escher is the focus of a new exhibition in his hometown of Leeuwarden.
Starting April 28, the Fries Museum in Leeuwarden, presents "Escher's Journey," a cross-section of the travel-loving artist's oeuvre. Made possible thanks to Leeuwarden's role as a 2018 European Capital of Culture, the exhibition contains 80 original prints, 20 drawings and other photographs and objects – some of which have not been shown in the Netherlands for decades.
Escher left with his family to Arnhem when he was just five years old. He lived there until he moved to Haarlem to study architecture. One of his graphic art professors, the Portuguese artist Jessurun de Mesquita, recognized Escher's talent and continued to teach him graphic techniques such as wood and linocut even after Escher broke off his architecture study after just one week.
Southern European influences
After 1921, the Dutchman began traveling south, repeating trips to Italy and later through the entire Mediterranean to Spain and Portugal. Traveling mostly on foot or with donkeys, he made his way to Italy, where he met his wife Jetta, whom he married in Viareggio in 1924. The couple lived together near Rome until 1935.
Time and again, Escher made Mediterranean villages, buildings and landscapes the focus of the sketches he printed in the Netherlands. The impressions he collected during this time, which he claimed to be his happiest, remained eternal sources of inspiration. The realistic early prints that arose out of his first travels would return later repeatedly, for example, the images of village Atrani on the Amalfi coast, which is also seen in 1937 in the first print from his "Metamorphosis" series.
On a trip to southern Spain, Escher visited the Alhambra and grew fascinated by the medieval mosaic art of the Moors. As a result, he worked intensively in the style until the end of his life, filling in uniform shapes and partial areas, within which he added in his own graphics and drawings, populating them with fantastic figures. Escher drew a total of 137 surface patterns.
His masterpiece is the "Metamorphosis," in which birds become fish and people transform into buildings.
Impossible figures
Escher has gained such a wide audience as a result of his mathematical prints, as he played with perspectives and produced impossible constructions. These later works included "Ascending and Descending," "Relativity," "Waterfall" or the "Drawing Hands," in which elements of the image are to reproduce each other.
They are on display through October 28, 2018 as part of the "Escher's Journey" exhibition at the Fries Museum in Leeuwarden. Many events featuring the hometown hero will take place throughout the year. "Phantom Limb: Art Beyond Escher" is a simultaneous exhibition featuring installations by contemporary artists who, like Escher, challenge objective perception by turning things upside down.