Escher's little spoon

Have you ever found yourself trapped inside a dream, wandering aimlessly around a staircase, or unable to find your way out of a building? Followers of Freud and other experts in the human psyche might well be able to shed light on those dreams for you. But there is only one person who can actually show you what such a dream feels like: that one person is Maurits Cornelis Escher.

Even though Escher produced more than 650 prints of Day and night, Sky and water I is undoubtedly his most famous work and the one that is most widely known to the general public. This square woodcut - depicting fish transforming into birds - can be seen on posters, mug, bedspreads and sometimes even in advertising campaigns.

Reflection is a recurring theme in the work of Maurits Escher. This in itself is not that surprising. Most artists produce a self-portrait at some point. Escher carved his first self-portrait while he was still living in Arnhem and he continued to create successive self-portraits at regular intervals during his career. Escher used ordinary mirrors, but Escher also used other reflective surfaces.