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St Peter's from the Gianicolo
29 February 2020

St Peter's from the Gianicolo

The Gianicolo (or Janiculum) towers above the city of Rome directly above the Trastevere district on the west side of the Tiber River. This hill offers fantastic views of the city and is a favourite destination for locals. That must have been the case for Escher as well, especially the park around the Villa Doria Pamphili. Here, in the largest public park in Rome, he was able to escape the noise and chaos of the city. It was less than a 30-minute walk from his home on Via Alessandro Poerio. He took pictures here and incorporated the view into his prints. One of them is St Peter's from the Gianicolo , from February 1935.

M.C. Escher, St Peter's [Seen] from the Gianicolo [Rome], wood engraving, February 1935

M.C. Escher, St Peter's [Seen] from the Gianicolo [Rome], wood engraving, February 1935

As is usually the case with Escher, the print is a combination of fact and fiction. The wood engraving combines a parcelled farm landscape containing a solitary tree with a view of St. Peter's and the surrounding buildings - an idealistic and tranquil image that has little to do with reality. Even back then, there were no clear views of the famous church and the view certainly did not include agricultural fields. The tree, which Escher contrasts beautifully with its surroundings by cutting a white line around it, must have been there, although it is unlikely that it could dominate the field of vision by itself. Escher took reality into his own hands, just as he does in the other print prominently featuring St. Peter's: San Michele dei Frisoni.

Gianiculo, 17 March 1924

Gianiculo, 17 March 1924

Jetta in the park at Villa Doria Pamphili, 7 April 1924

Jetta in the park at Villa Doria Pamphili, 7 April 1924

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Gianicolo, 2 February 1924

Gianicolo, 2 February 1924

Gianicolo, 2 February 1924

Gianicolo, 2 February 1924

Erik Kersten

Erik Kersten

Editor

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Development I

Development I

Development I and Development II are both prints in which Escher attempts to find a satisfactory way to express the concept of ‘infinity’. They show development, but are also part of a development. In October 1937, he showed his collection of tessellations to his brother Beer (Berend), a professor of geology, mineralogy, palaeontology and crystallography at Leiden University. Escher's collection consisted partly of copies of tessellations he had traced in the Alhambra (Granada) and La Mezquita (Cordoba) in the spring of 1936 and partly of ones he had drawn himself. He first started making tessellations some ten years earlier. In his early attempts, he carved an animal shape directly into the woodblock, after which he duplicated it on paper or fabric either mirrored or rotated.
Italian snow, 1935

Italian snow, 1935

In early February 1935 Maurits and Jetta went to Abruzzo with the Mr and Mrs Leopold, a couple they had befriended. They travelled by bus from Rome to the medieval capital of the region: Aquila. It was not that far, about 75 miles. They then travelled on to Campo Imperatore, a plateau in the Gran Sasso National Park. This plateau is the highest mountain range of the Apennines and is one of the oldest ski areas in Italy: skiing started here in the 1920s. Escher had been planning to move to Switzerland with his family for some time, because of the rise of fascism in Italy and also because his sons’ health would benefit from the Swiss mountain air.
Predestination (Topsy-Turvy World)

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The universe of M.C. Escher is governed by harmony, tranquillity, order and peace. Disharmony, unrest, disorder and war are far away. Or serve as a background for the beauty in the foreground. Consider in this regard prints like Contrast (Order and Chaos) and Crystal. Escher sees the world as an everlasting struggle between these extremes. As an artist he had the task of showing the world that order is self-evident, although it sometimes seems remote.