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The Brexit labyrinth
30 March 2019

The Brexit labyrinth

Since the Brexit referendum on 23 June 2016, the United Kingdom has been in a constant state of uncertainty about the future of the nation and its relationship with mainland Europe. Last Friday was B-day but even that deadline was not met. Theresa May, the prime minister who should have steered everything in the right direction, turned out to be the direct object of this confusion. Although the mood around Brexit is still very pessimistic, there is one group of professionals that is getting some fun out of it. For almost three years the cartoonists have been producing an inexhaustible stream of political prints on Brexit. And M.C. Escher has been playing a notable role in this.

After all, it turns out that a number of his prints can serve as a wonderful metaphor for this confusion and for the continuous repetition of moves characterising the process. Relativity is perhaps the most obvious one. Escher himself described the labyrinth in which several realities co-existed as follows:

'The illustration involves three forces of gravity working perpendicular to one another. Three earth planes cut across each other at right angles, and human beings are living on each of them. It is impossible for two inhabitants of different worlds to walk or sit or stand on the same floor, because they have different perceptions of what is horizontal and what is vertical. Yet they may well share the use of the same staircase. On the top staircase illustrated here, two people are moving side by side and in the same direction, and yet one of them is going downstairs and the other upstairs. Contact between them is out of the question because they live in different worlds and therefore can have no knowledge of each other’s existence.’

Perpetual Brexit

The Brexit cartoons this was turned into depict Theresa May walking through these worlds, looking for the exit and some understanding. She also symbolises the Leavers and Remainers. Both groups live in their own world in which little understanding exists for the reality of the other. In the third print, the labyrinth of Relativity symbolises the mind of Paul Dacre. This former editor of the Daily Mail campaigned long and hard against EU membership for years and saw the result of the referendum as his most important legacy.

Bob Moran (The Telegraph)

Bob Moran (The Telegraph)

John Kudelka (The Australian)

John Kudelka (The Australian)

Martin Rowson (The Guardian)

Martin Rowson (The Guardian)

M.C. Escher, Relativiteit, litho, juli 1953

M.C. Escher, Relativiteit, litho, juli 1953

The other print that is repeatedly used by cartoonists is Ascending and Descending. The perpetual staircase on which both ascenders and descenders run their laps without ever getting anywhere is a metaphor that is possibly even stronger than the one in Relativity. Escher was inspired by the British (yes, indeed) mathematicians Lionel and Roger Penrose, but it is mainly the lithograph that he made of it that has remained in the collective memory.

Dave Brown (The Independent)

Dave Brown (The Independent)

Jeff Koterba (Omaha World-Herald)

Jeff Koterba (Omaha World-Herald)

Peter Brookes (The Times)

Peter Brookes (The Times)

Scott Clissold (Sunday Express)

Scott Clissold (Sunday Express)

Martin Rowson (The Guardian)

Martin Rowson (The Guardian)

M.C. Escher, Klimmen en dalen, litho, maart 1960

M.C. Escher, Klimmen en dalen, litho, maart 1960

The third print is Möbius Strip, named after a mathematical principle that was first described in 1858, but which is still best known through Escher’s versions of it. Just like the stairs in Ascending and Descending, this path has no end at all. We hope that the British will be able to make up their minds soon.

Steve Bell (The Guardian)

Steve Bell (The Guardian)

Tom Janssen (Trouw)

Tom Janssen (Trouw)

Ingram Pinn (Financial Times)

Ingram Pinn (Financial Times)

Philip Reynold (Gulf Times)

Philip Reynold (Gulf Times)

M.C. Escher, Band van Möbius II (Rode mieren), houtsnede in rood, zwart en grijsgroen, gedrukt van drie blokken, februari 1963

M.C. Escher, Band van Möbius II (Rode mieren), houtsnede in rood, zwart en grijsgroen, gedrukt van drie blokken, februari 1963

Erik Kersten

Erik Kersten

Editor

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Gottfried Wilhelm Locher

Gottfried Wilhelm Locher

On the 23rd of March 1908 Gottfried Wilhelm Locher was born, a man whose name is barely known to the general public, but who has been of immense importance to the legacy of M.C. Escher. Locher already had an illustrious career in anthropology when he made a number of important contributions to this legacy. He gave lectures and wrote articles about Escher, presenting brilliant interpretations of the richness of his art. He highlighted the bold contrasts in his oeuvre. Between light and dark, day and night, flat and spatial, reality and illusion, latent and manifest, far and near, infinite and finite, order and chaos, reason and emotion and between head and heart. Locher saw Escher as the artist to have managed to bridge the gap between art and science. Locher was also one of the first major Escher collectors. He went out on a limb for the artist, who received scant appreciation until the late 1950s.
Pristine nature

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.
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?