Prepare to be amazed by the works of M.C. Escher

For years, M.C. Escher lived in Rome, but he did not like to depict the city itself in his prints. Escher found Rome more beautiful by night, which led him in 1934 to make a large series of woodcuts and drawings entitled Nocturnal Rome. During this period, he also drew the Basilica Santi Giovanni e Paolo. The drawing led to a lithograph only two years later: S.S. Giovanni e Paolo (1936). Ten years later, he returned to the subject with his first mezzotint: Dusk (1946). At first glance, the lithograph and the mezzotint seem almost identical, but they certainly are not.

The sculptures of Jehoshua Rozenman (b. 1955) are not as they first appear. They look robust, monumental, but they are in fact made of fragile glass. These mysterious pieces resemble impossible, secretive buildings that seem to come from another dimension. It is in the tension between fantasy and reality that Jehoshua Rozenman and M.C. Escher meet. This summer, for the first time, Escher in The Palace will combine the two-dimensional world of Escher with the two- and three-dimensional work of Rozenman.

From 18 March to 7 September, Escher in The Palace exhibits a special loan, namely a carefully written letter from Escher enthusiast Hendrik Dekker. In the letter, he expresses his admiration for the print Reptiles (1943). The handwritten response by Escher himself is also on display.

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Escher was a printmaker, but what exactly is that? Read the pages below to find out more about the techniques he used: woodcut, wood engraving, linocut, lithography, etching and mezzotint. Each of them has its own particular qualities, so the prints made using these techniques differ in terms of their complexity and visual character.