This website uses cookies

We use cookies and similar technologies on this website to analyze visits and to show you relevant messages on social media. By clicking 'Accept all' you give permission for their placement and for the processing of personal data obtained in this way, as stated in our privacy & cookie statement.

Our privacy & cookie statement:

A tunnel of butterflies, 1944
1 September 2018

A tunnel of butterflies, 1944

During the war years, the volume of new prints Escher produced fell sharply. He lacked inspiration and he had other things to worry about. But that does not mean he was not engaged in any creative work. During the war, he threw himself into his regular division drawings, constantly devising new variants for filling the plane with regular patterns. Between the outbreak of the Second World War  in 1939 and the Dutch liberation in May 1945, he produced about 35 new drawings.

M.C. Escher, Regular division drawing with butterflies, India ink, water color and pencil on paper, September 1944

M.C. Escher, Regular division drawing with butterflies, India ink, water color and pencil on paper, September 1944

If you look at this series, the war seems remote. Even in those years his work is teeming with birds, fish, reptiles, frogs, insects, flowers and shells. Only with the drawing that he made during Christmas 1941, with angels and devils, does he seem to be saying something about the bizarre situation in which the world was at that time. He also used the subject for his wooden sphere full of angels and devils that he cut in early 1942.* With a bit of imagination, the last drawing from the war years, from September 1944, can also be regarded as a metaphor. Together, the red and grey butterflies form a deep tunnel. An abyss of misery with which Escher seems to be anticipating the failure of Operation Market Garden at the end of September and the famine that would ravage the Netherlands in the winter of 1944-1945. Some extremely difficult months ensued, during which the Escher family fell on hard times too. He no longer worked between this drawing and the Liberation. He wrote about it in his diary:

'That was the hardest thing I ever experienced: my time was totally and utterly taken up with providing for the household; a materialism that (however ideal because it mostly concerned my family) almost drove me crazy.'**

Diary 1944

Initially, Escher is still optimistic. On 31 August 1944 he notes that Paris has fallen.

Initially, Escher is still optimistic. On 31 August 1944 he notes that Paris has fallen.

Brussels followed on 3 September.

Brussels followed on 3 September.

He writes that the first Allied troops enter the Netherlands on 11 September, after which they liberate Maastricht on 14 September.

He writes that the first Allied troops enter the Netherlands on 11 September, after which they liberate Maastricht on 14 September.

On 17 September, there are air landings and on 20 September the bridge at Nijmegen falls into allied hands.

On 17 September, there are air landings and on 20 September the bridge at Nijmegen falls into allied hands.

But then things go wrong. On 26 September 1944 the Allies are defeated at Arnhem, airborne troops are destroyed, 2,000 troops retreat back across the Rhine.

But then things go wrong. On 26 September 1944 the Allies are defeated at Arnhem, airborne troops are destroyed, 2,000 troops retreat back across the Rhine.

7 October: electric power is completely shut off.

7 October: electric power is completely shut off.

14 October: last day of sugar!

14 October: last day of sugar!

16 October: gas completely shut off. In search of food, Escher makes his first foraging trip to Zoetermeer that week.

16 October: gas completely shut off. In search of food, Escher makes his first foraging trip to Zoetermeer that week.

 

Sources

[*] Wim Hazeu, M.C. Escher, Een biografie, Meulenhoff, 1998, blz. 279.

[**] Wim Hazeu, M.C. Escher, Een biografie, Meulenhoff, 1998, blz. 295.

Erik Kersten

Erik Kersten

Editor

Share:

More Escher today

Portrait of father Escher, 1935

Portrait of father Escher, 1935

On 4 July 1935 Escher and his family moved from Rome to the Swiss town Château-d'Oex, after which he traveled almost directly to the Netherlands to arrange things for a long stay in Switzerland. From his parents’ home in The Hague he visited, among other things, his old teacher Jessurun de Mesquita, he consulted with his cousin Anton Escher about a logo for his machine factory, he talks to the Dutch postal service ‘PTT’ and ‘Drukkerij Enschedé’ about his design for the aviation fund stamp and he meets with his friends Jan van der Does the Willebois and Bas Kist. Between all visits he spends three weeks working on a very detailed, loving portrait of his father.
Crystallography congress Cambridge, 1960

Crystallography congress Cambridge, 1960

On 19 August 1960, Escher held a lecture at the Fifth Congress and General Assembly of the International Union of Crystallography. He was invited to this congress by Prof. Dr Carolina H. MacGillavry, professor in chemical crystallography at the University of Amsterdam. In 1950 she was appointed as the first female member of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences. MacGillavry was a great admirer of Escher and would go on to publish the book Symmetry Aspects of M.C. Escher’s Periodic Drawings in 1965. For crystallographers, the tessellations on which Escher spent years working in his sketchbooks were ideal teaching materials. His patterns are very well suited to being used to study the symmetry, repetition and reflection that are so characteristic of the field. Below is one of the drawings from Escher’s sketchbooks that was exhibited in Cambridge and is included in the book by MacGillavry.
Knots with Albert Flocon

Knots with Albert Flocon

In March 1965, Escher met the French artist and professor Albert Flocon, lecturer at the prestigious Ecole des Beaux Arts in Paris. Flocon mainly created copper engravings and, like Escher, he was fascinated by the mystery of the perspective. Especially the curvilinear perspective, a form that Escher has also used several times (think of Hand with reflecting sphere, Balcony, Three Spheres II, Drop (Dewdrop) and Self Portrait in Spherical Mirror). The meeting proved to be of great importance to Escher; Flocon ensured that his prints became known in Paris. The professor personally mediated on the sale of prints and an organized Escher exhibition in Paris. In October 1965 Flocon published a ten-page article about Escher in the important monthly Jardin des Arts.