{"id":5645,"date":"2018-02-01T19:39:56","date_gmt":"2018-02-02T00:39:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/?p=5645"},"modified":"2018-02-01T19:39:56","modified_gmt":"2018-02-02T00:39:56","slug":"m-c-escher","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/2018\/02\/01\/m-c-escher\/","title":{"rendered":"As World War II Loomed, M.C. Escher Escaped Into His Mind-Bending Magic-Realist Worlds"},"content":{"rendered":"

In 1935, as fascism was rising in Italy and storm clouds of World War II shadowed Europe, the artist M.C. Escher decided the situation had gotten so bad in Rome, where he was living, that he had to move out. He took his family to Switzerland, then Brussels, and finally back to his native Netherlands.<\/p>\n

The moves coincided with a dramatic change in his art. He stopped drawing realistic depictions of the hills and towns of Italy. Instead he turned inward, developing the mind-bending dreamscapes and no-exit stairways by which he\u2019s still famous today.<\/p>\n

Among the first examples of this transformation was his 1938 woodcut \u201cDay and Night,\u201d which is on view in an exhibition of more than 50 of his artworks, \u201cM.C. Escher: Infinite Dimensions\u201d<\/a> at Boston\u2019s Museum of Fine Arts from Feb. 3 to May 28.<\/p>\n

\"M.C.<\/a>
M.C. Escher “Day and Night” 1938 woodcut. (Greg Cook)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

On the left, a flock of black geese fly in formation over daytime Dutch farm fields, a bending river, and a tiny village ringing a cathedral. On the right is a mirror image of the same scene, this time with white birds gliding over the landscape at night.<\/p>\n

Most discussion of this print today follows Escher\u2019s own take\u2014marveling at the patterns and optical illusions of the picture, at the way the birds seem to emerge dreamlike out of the squares of the farm fields, at the mirroring of the two sides of the composition, at Escher\u2019s penchant for mutating flat patterns into three-dimensional illusion, at how, as a printmaker, he was attuned to reversals because of the ways images are reversed from the printing plate to paper.<\/p>\n

But in anxious February 1938, when he made the print, couldn’t \u201cDay and Night\u201d have been read as imagining two visions of the Netherlands, of Europe? One is sunny and perhaps already lost to the past, the other version is cast into darkness.<\/p>\n

\"M.C.<\/a>
M.C. Escher “Ravello and the Coast of Amalfi,” 1931 lithograph. (Greg Cook)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Wildly Undulating Hills <\/strong>
\nMaurits Cornelis Escher was born in Leeuwarden, the Netherlands, in 1898, the fourth son of a civil engineer. He grew up there and, after age 5, in Arnhem. In 1919, he began studying to be an architect at the School for Architecture and Decorative Arts in Haarlem. There he met a teacher named Samuel Jessurun de Mesquita, who was impressed by Escher\u2019s graphic work.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe insisted that I go on with\u201d my woodcuts, Escher recounted in 1968. \u201cIf he had not talked with my parents, I would have gone into architecture. And I never really wanted to build houses. Only madhouses.\u201d<\/p>\n

Though M.C. Escher\u2019s mature work can be seen as a variety of surrealism, he operated outside the modernist art movements of the West. For the most part, even to this day, his art is ignored by standard art history surveys and museum canons. The Museum of Fine Arts describes its exhibition as the \u201cfirst exhibition of original prints by the Dutch artist in Boston.\u201d<\/p>\n

Escher\u2019s early work from the 1910s and \u201820s was typical student stuff\u2014self-portraits, naked ladies, skulls and religious subjects (Garden of Eden, St. Francis). Then he pursued his own path by making sketching trips to Italy, beginning in 1921. He met a woman by the name of Jetta Umiker there two years later, and married her in 1924. They settled in Rome, where they lived for 11 years and had two sons.<\/p>\n

In Italy, at first, Escher pursued religious themes (the Biblical story of creation, \u201cThe Fall of Man,\u201d the Tower of Babel) and mystical imagery (a massive castle floating in the air, a cathedral flooded up to its roof). But after the low country flatness of the Netherlands, he was entranced by the rugged hills and centuries-old stone architecture of Italy. \u201cI shall probably have to stay here for months to learn to understand these wildly undulating hills and luxuriant plant life,\u201d he wrote in 1922.<\/p>\n

Escher traveled about sketching in summers, then worked on woodcuts and lithographs in winters in his studio above the living quarters in the family\u2019s Rome apartment. His prints depicted the narrow streets of Abruzzi, a cathedral perched atop the cliffs of the shore at Atrani, the terraced hills of Amalfi, the mountains of Sicily. His renderings are realistic, but knowing what comes later, you note his preference for dramatic perspectives and sense his inclination to twist and warp space.<\/p>\n

\"M.C.<\/a>
M.C. Escher “Hand with Reflecting Sphere” 1935 lithograph. (Greg Cook)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

His 1935 lithograph \u201cHand with Reflecting Sphere,\u201d offers a glimpse of where he was headed. \u201cHe was actually interested in art history. Like \u2018Hand with Reflecting Sphere, that\u2019s something that dates back to Netherlandish art of the 15th century,\u201d says Ronni Baer, who curated the Museum of Fine Arts exhibition. \u201cThe glisten, the gleam, the attempt to capture surfaces are the things Dutch painters back to the 15th century are known for.\u201d<\/p>\n

But the reflecting sphere also presents a warped, fish-eye perspective of Escher sitting in his Rome studio. His drawing table\u2014where he would whistle Bach and Dutch folksongs as he worked\u2014stands below the window in the background. Perhaps Escher, who would leave this home that July, wanted to capture a sort of memory of it in a bubble.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn 1935, the political climate in Italy became totally unacceptable to him. He had no interest in politics,\u201d Bruno Ernst wrote in his 1978 book \u201cThe Magic Mirror of M.C. Escher.\u201d \u201cBut he was averse to fanaticism and hypocrisy. When his eldest son, George, was forced, at the age of 9, to wear the Balilla uniform of the Fascist Youth in school, the family decided to leave Italy.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"M.C.<\/a>
M.C. Escher “Frog\/Bird (Symmetry drawing 52)” c. 1942 pen, ink and watercolor. (Greg Cook)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Metamorphosis<\/strong>
\nOne of the first prints Escher seems to have made after departing Italy was a November 1935 lithograph in which he copied Netherlandish artist Hieronymus Bosch\u2019s 15th century painting of \u201cHell.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Escher family spent two years in the mountainous Swiss village of Chateau-d\u2019Oex. Then in August 1937, they moved to the Brussels suburb of Ukkel, where their third son was born. The Germans invaded in May 1940. The following February, the family moved to Baarn in German-occupied Holland. There Escher would reside until 1970, two years before his death.<\/p>\n

But before he returned home to Holland, Escher and Jetta made a boat cruise around Mediterranean ports for two months in the spring of 1936. This included a visit to the landmark 14th century Islamic palace at Alhambra, the Mosque at Cordoba, and other nearby Muslim sites. Escher had been to Alhambra in 1922\u2014the same year he created his woodcut \u201cEight Heads,\u201d one of his first prints to show his propensity for patterns.<\/p>\n

Now electrified by the dazzling, decorative geometric patterns of the wall mosaics, \u201che becomes interested in tessellations and really explores them continuously throughout his life,\u201d Baer says. These became his famed interlocking, wriggling designs of birds, fish and frogs, with their curious sense of duality, that one thing can suddenly, magically transform into something else.<\/p>\n

\"M.C.<\/a>
M.C. Escher “Study for Verbum” c. 1942 pencil on paper. (Greg Cook)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

This coincided with another shift in Escher\u2019s art. \u201cThe fact that, from 1938 onwards, I concentrated more on the interpretation of personal ideas was primarily the result of my departure from Italy,\u201d Escher wrote in his 1959 book, \u201cGraphics and Drawings of M.C. Escher.\u201d \u201cIn Switzerland, Belgium and Holland where I successively established myself, I found the outward appearance of landscape and architecture less striking than that which is particularly to be seen in the southern part of Italy. Thus I felt compelled to withdraw from the more or less direct and true-to-life illustrating of my surroundings. No doubt this circumstance was to a high degree responsible for bringing my inner visions into being.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019re poetic images. They\u2019re not hard to understand, but they\u2019re not something you might apprehend in nature. There\u2019s also a lot of whimsy,\u201d Baer says. Escher has a mix of \u201cplayfulness and mathematics that you don\u2019t often see in one place.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"M.C.<\/a>
M.C. Escher “Eye” 1946 mezzotint and drypoint. (Greg Cook)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Escher endeavored to invent his own psychologically charged worlds in which wondrous magic was possible. In his art, the murderous political realities of Europe were but a whisper. But this is when he made his\u00a01938 woodcut \u201cDay and Night.” This is when he made\u00a0his 1946 mezzotint \u201cEye,” which suggests that he remained haunted by the war\u2014and he would be for decades. It\u2019s a close-up depiction of his own eye with a skull appearing in the pupil. It\u2019s \u201cthe Good Man Bones,\u201d Escher explained in 1964, \u201cwith whom we are all confronted whether we like it or not.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI was not involved with the Resistance, but I had many Jewish friends who were killed,\u201d Escher recalled in 1968. Among them were de Mesquita and his family\u2014the teacher who\u2019d encouraged him to abandon his studies of architecture for his art. \u201cIn 1944, during the famine winter, I wanted to bring them something, apples. \u2026 I walked to their house. The windows on the first floor were broken. The neighbors said: \u2018You haven\u2019t heard? The de Mesquitas have been taken away.\u2019 This [drawing] lay on the floor with the impressions of the cleats from the Krauts\u2019 boots. It was lying under the staircase. And in his studio everything was a mess, everything on the floor. \u2026 Afterwards I blamed myself. \u2026 Really terrible, you know, such sweet people, carried away like cattle to be butchered.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"M.C.<\/a>
M.C. Escher “Relativity” 1953 lithograph. (Greg Cook)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Longing For The Impossible<\/strong>
\nThe MFA exhibition includes nearly all Escher\u2019s famous works. In his magic realist 1943 lithograph \u201cReptiles,\u201d alligators crawl out of one of his pattern drawings into \u201creal\u201d life, wandering across his desk and back into the drawing. In his 1948 lithograph \u201cDrawing Hands,\u201d two hands seem to draw each other into existence.<\/p>\n

\u201cI can\u2019t keep from fooling around with our irrefutable certainties. It is, for example, a pleasure knowingly to mix up two- and three-dimensionalities, flat and spatial, and to make fun of gravity,\u201d Escher said in a 1965 speech.<\/p>\n

\"M.C.<\/a>
M.C. Escher “Ascending and Descending” 1960 lithograph. (Greg Cook)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

In his 1953 lithograph \u201cRelativity,\u201d faceless characters wander impossible stairways that turn up and down and sideways in defiance of gravity. In his 1960 lithograph \u201cAscending and Descending,\u201d lines of people trudge around the impossible stairways circling a castle top. \u201cWhen they are tired, they can change direction and descent for a while,\u201d Escher wrote in 1964. \u201cBut both notions, though not without an abstruse meaning, are equally useless.\u201d<\/p>\n

There is the heart of Escher\u2014wonder tempered by an abiding sense of futility and loneliness. \u201cIt sometimes seems to me that we are all afflicted with an urge and possessed by a longing for the impossible,\u201d he wrote in 1958. \u201cThe reality around us, the three-dimensional world surrounding us, is too common, too dull, too ordinary for us. We hanker after the unnatural or supernatural, that which does not exist, a miracle.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n

Help us keep producing our great coverage of local arts, cultures and activism by contributing to Wonderland on Patreon<\/a>. And sign up for our free, weekly newsletter<\/a> so that you don’t miss any of our reporting.<\/em><\/p>\n

\"M.C.<\/a>
M.C. Escher “Reptiles” 1943 lithograph. (Greg Cook)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"M.C.<\/a>
M.C. Escher “Three Worlds” 1955 lithograph. (Greg Cook)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"M.C.<\/a>
M.C. Escher “Bond of Union” 1956 lithograph. (Greg Cook)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"M.C.<\/a>
M.C. Escher “Belvedere” 1958 lithograph. (Greg Cook)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In 1935, as fascism was rising in Italy and storm clouds of World War II shadowed Europe, the artist M.C. Escher decided the situation had gotten so bad in Rome, where he was living, that he had to move out. He took his family to Switzerland, then Brussels, and finally back to his native Netherlands. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5692,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[100],"tags":[37,216],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5645"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5645"}],"version-history":[{"count":27,"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5645\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5705,"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5645\/revisions\/5705"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5692"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5645"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5645"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5645"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}