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
Butterfly (Emblemata)
Escher Today
24 September 2017

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 our attention on Butterfly. In this woodcut Escher puts a butterfly (a small tortoiseshell, a swallowtail, who knows?) in a richly ornamented palette of flowers and plants. Art historian G.J. Hoogewerff provided these Emblemata with a motto in Latin and a poem in Dutch.

M.C. Escher, XIX, Butterfly, woodcut, between March and June 1931

M.C. Escher, XIX, Butterfly, woodcut, between March and June 1931

In this case:

‘Signum immortalitatis fragile admodum.'

Which translates roughly as:

Erik Kersten

Erik Kersten

Editor

Share:

More Escher today

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
Trademark welder

Trademark welder

In September 1935 Maurits Cornelis Escher made a woodcut for his cousin Anne Escher (1895-1971), the founder and director of engineering company Ir. Escher's Constructiewerkplaatsen en Machinefabriek N.V. The company, founded in 1925, would grow into a major metalworking company, which by the 1950s had the largest factory hall in The Hague. In 1930 the company started using stick welding. Maurits Escher used the welder with his distinctive hood for the woodcut, which was to be used as a logo for his cousin.
Read more