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:

Order tickets
Ant
Escher Today
4 October 2017

Ant

It is World Animal Day, so we are focusing on animals in Escher’s work. They are not hard to find: there are plenty of animals in his prints, especially in his many tessellations. He interconnected birds, fish, lizards, horses, dogs, butterflies and all kinds of insects in countless ways.

M.C. Escher, Ant, lithograph, May 1943

M.C. Escher, Ant, lithograph, May 1943

But today we will not be concentrating on a tessellation but rather on an individual animal. A creature that rivals Escher in terms of diligence. He created this gem right in the middle of his long search for variations in regular divisions of the plane, with an ever-present WWII as a backdrop.

Erik Kersten

Erik Kersten

Editor

Share:

More Escher today

Butterfly (Emblemata)

Butterfly (Emblemata)

Due to the latest change of displayed works, a number of works that are part of a series can now be seen in Room 1: nine (of the 25 in total) woodcuts from the Emblemata series Escher produced in 1931. Earlier we showed you Toadstool from this series, today we focus your attention on Butterfly. In this woodcut Escher puts a butterfly in a richly ornamented palette of flowers and plants.
Read more
Fish in Baarn

Fish in Baarn

In September 1941 Escher started on his woodcut Fish, the first work he produced after moving to Baarn. In his diary he wrote about the process:
12 Sep: 'At night fish woodcut idea.' 13 Sep: 'Started on it.' 07 Oct: 'Started on 1st block Fish.' 16 Oct: 'Started on 2nd block Fish.' 23 Oct: 'Started on 3rd block Fish.'
Read more
Three Spheres I

Three Spheres I

The liberation of the Netherlands in May 1945 was personally as well as artistically liberating for Maurits Escher. In the second half of that year he produced Balcony, Doric Columns, Three Spheres I and a woodcut for the 'Tijdelijke Academie (Temporary Academy)' in Eindhoven. He was also working on the lithograph Magic Mirror, which would be completed in January 1946. In Three Spheres I, from September that year, he very precisely demonstrates how to evoke a three-dimensional form on a flat surface.
Read more