Sky and Water I

In all its apparent simplicity, Sky and Water I shows how Escher developed his optical illusions in the 1930s. In this iconic print, he playfully explores how fish and birds interrelate. The relationship between shapes and residual shapes is important here. The shape can only exist because the residual shape provides context. In this print, the shapes are fish and birds, which are identical in the centre. But as soon as you look up or down, things change, four white fish coming to represent the sky in which a black bird flies. The higher it flies, the more the fish disappear. For a while, the four black birds around a fish are the water it swims in. The deeper it swims, the more the birds disappear. Escher achieved a perfect balance here between shape and residual shape, a journey from sky to water and back that one never tires of looking at.