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
Grasshopper
Escher Today
29 November 2017

Grasshopper

This week we had a slight change in terms of the works being exhibited. Some were returned to the archive and were replaced by a series of other works by Escher. One of these is Grasshopper, a wood engraving from March 1935. In very fine detail Escher shows a specimen of this winged insect with its powerful hind legs, compound eyes, antennae and folded wings.

M.C. Escher, Grasshopper, wood engraving, March 1935

M.C. Escher, Grasshopper, wood engraving, March 1935

Just as he did in his mezzotint Mummified frog, his wood engravings Scarabs and Libellula (Dragonfly) and the lithograph Ant, this is an example of how Escher holds a magnifying glass over a tiny creature. As if he is putting it on a pedestal. In this case literally: the insect stands on a mirroring surface in which the small details of its head, body and legs are reflected. The grasshopper radiates an unyielding presence, defying his tiny stature.

Erik Kersten

Erik Kersten

Editor

Share:

More Escher today

Cubic Space Division

Cubic Space Division

Studying concepts like eternity and infinity in his work was definitely an obsession for Escher. He explored countless ways of suggesting boundlessness within the limited frame of his woodblock or his lithography stone. One of the ways he approached this was playing with depth and perspective. By varying the thickness of lines, sizes of shapes and foreground versus background, he achieved this sense of infinite space in a number of works.
Read more
Fish and birds experiments

Fish and birds experiments

Although he was fascinated by the concept of the regular division of the plane even early on in his career, it was not until 1936 that Escher tackled it in earnest. A period ensued in which he performed countless experiments with ways of filling a plane with patterns of geometric shapes. He did this in the form of drawings which he did in a notebook with a view to mastering the research process.
Read more
Lecture in Alkmaar, 1953

Lecture in Alkmaar, 1953

On 16 November 1953 Escher gave a lecture to the Friends of the Stedelijk Museum in Alkmaar, on the occasion of an exhibition of his work. During those years Escher had frequent opportunities to exhibit in museums, art galleries and universities, often together with two or more fellow members of the Association of Dutch Graphic Artists. He would usually accompany these exhibitions with a lecture on his own work.
Read more