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Pristine nature
16 March 2019

Pristine nature

Today is Kids’ Museum Night. One ticket enables children to visit 20 locations in The Hague and Voorburg. Our museum is participating as well, of course. The link between children and Escher is very clear. The graphic artist was able to look at the world with a curious eye and he managed to capture the playful spirit of children in his magical worlds. He also viewed nature with a sense of awe. For him, a mountain landscape, deciduous forest or summery lawn was never just a mountain landscape, deciduous forest or summery lawn. He saw details that no one else saw and he was able to enjoy to the fullest what nature had to offer him.

M.C. Escher, The First Day of Creation, woodcut, December 1925

M.C. Escher, The First Day of Creation, woodcut, December 1925

On 7 April 1957 he wrote in a letter to son Arthur:

'For the past few days, now that the birds are becoming active and singing their hearts out, a beautiful woodpecker has been dropping by, just like the blue tits, to peck at the string of peanuts I hung up in front of my studio window. He is very timid and flies off if I make the slightest movement, but I have been able to observe him very closely a number of times by sitting quite still. He hangs upside down on the string, assisted by propping his tail, which is about 90 degrees to his body, against the other peanuts and he pecks like a madman, making a hole in the shell between his feet in no time at all. In doing so, he sticks his bright-red rump straight up. What miracles are happening in the world!

I experienced the second miracle recently at the "Blauwe Koepeltje" — you know, on that open stretch of lawn between all kinds of beautiful clusters of trees on the Buitenzorg estate. For the first time in years I saw two deer grazing, at about seven o’clock in the evening. One was quite close, maybe 30 feet away. Its snow-white scut was towards me and the wind was in my direction. I must have stood there, absolutely still, watching it for about a minute. Then it obviously noticed me somehow: it turned around, looked at me for a moment, and bounded off at lightning pace. Its mate, which was grazing a little farther away, immediately followed this example, and in no time they had disappeared among the trees and the undergrowth. Such pristine nature, in the form of woodpeckers and deer, in the middle of—or at least very close to—that infernal motorway from Amsterdam to Amersfoort where an endless line of those stupid cars chase each other all day long, is extremely precious to me. It is the presence of these creatures of nature that allows me to accept, if not to understand, the crazy rushing and dashing about in our overpopulated country, patiently and without choking with rage.'*

Source

[*] M.C. Escher, His Life and Complete Graphic Work, edited by J.L. Locher, Abradale Press, 1982, page. 88

Erik Kersten

Erik Kersten

Editor

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More Escher today

Plane Filling I

Plane Filling I

In March 1951 Escher produced a print with the deceptively simple name Plane Filling I. I say 'deceptively simple' because at that point in time he had been a graphic artist for 30 years and had already produced countless tessellations. The principle of the regular division of the plane formed the core of his artistry, the subject to which he always kept returning. Why, then, did he suddenly produce a work that seems to suggest it is the first time he is tackling such a subject?
Giacomo Balla

Giacomo Balla

On 1 March 1958, Giacomo Balla, one of the most important artists of futurism, died. Escher probably did not know him personally, but he was familiar with his work. There are a number of surprising similarities between the futurist Balla and the early work of the graphic artist Escher.
Moving to Baarn, 1941

Moving to Baarn, 1941

On 20 February 1941 Maurits and Jetta moved with their three children to Nicolaas Beetslaan in Baarn. The couple had been living abroad since 1925. The first years in Rome, where George and Arnold were born. In the summer of 1935 they moved to the Swiss town Château-d’Oex and in 1937 they moved again, this time to Ukkel, a suburb of Brussels. In 1938 Son number three, Jan, was born there in 1938. After a more or less forced departure from Rome due to the rise of fascism and the health of his sons, and escape from the cold and the isolation in Switzerland, Ukkel seemed like a safe haven. But the arrival of the war and the death of his parents in 1939 and 1940 respectively forced Escher to reconsider his situation. After the German invasion of the Netherlands and Belgium in May 1940, it felt logic to return to his native country.