"Nobody is a prophet in their own land", says the adage, but the Fries Museum in Leeuwarden (this year's European Capital of Culture) in The Netherlands is subverting this statement by dedicating an exhibition to one of its most illustrious sons - M.C. Escher. The recently opened exhibition "Escher's Journey" (on until 28th October) follows Escher's career from graphic designer to world-famous artist and does so through a series of different cultural paths and events.
The exhibition at the Fries Museum features over eighty original prints, twenty drawings plus photographs and objects, some of them on loan from the M.C. Escher Foundation in Baarn, the Gemeentemuseum Den Haag, the Rijksmuseum Amsterdam and important private collections. It is also worth remembering that some of the drawings on display are being showed in The Netherlands for the first time or for the first time in decades.
Born in Leeuwarden in 1898, Maurits Cornelis Escher extensively travelled after his studies and eventually moved to Italy with his wife Jetta Umiker. Though based in Rome, they travelled throughout the country and Escher worked on different drawings and sketches that later on in his life were turned into lithographs, woodcuts and wood engravings.
Escher lived in Italy his happiest years, a formative period of time that went from 1923 to 1935 and that gave him time to experiment with landscapes, striking perspectives and lights and shadows (think about the scenes he captured in "Nocturnal Rome"). Escher would reach secluded villages in the mountains by donkey or sketch at night with a torch tied to his buttonhole.
After becoming obsessed with the Division of the Plane, a fascination that the artist developed when he visited the famous Alhambra in Granada, Spain, Escher created a series of drawings inspired by it.
Architectural perspectives, geometrical and mathematical illusions and real places combined in his complex images that violated physical laws and generated impossible yet mesmerising worlds such as the ones in "Belvedere" (1958), with an Italian mountain landscape in the background, or "Metamorphosis II" (1939-1940), incorporating geometric figures, bees, insects and even a chessboard and a view from the Atrani cathedral on the Amalfi coast.
The Fries Museum journey starts in The Netherlands, but soon moves to the Mediterranean sun and to the Italian mountains of forgotten Abruzzese villages that only Dr Who's fans may have heard about (Castrovalva anybody?), locations that turned for Escher into great inspirations.
Shortly after leaving for Italy, on Christmas Day 1922, Escher wrote to his friend Jan: "The completely new atmosphere in which I live; the surprisingly unexpected and unknown feelings presented to me every day in this blessed place, could not be processed by my heart with sufficient gratitude and with sufficient mental appreciation if I did not attempt to let others share them with me by letter, and I did not attempt to record the excesses to which I am exposed here, and to save them from the cursed oblivion for a time."
Among the works in the exhibition there are also "Eight Heads" (1922) - a motif of four women's and four men's heads printed several times (once in the possession the artist's eldest son, George Escher, who donated the work to the National Gallery of Canada in 1982) and "Convex and Concave" (1955), representing a Mediterranean-style building from a dizzying perspective.
Escher's famous images were always preceded by a great deal of research and practice: the "Convex and Concave" print is indeed presented in the exhibition together with the ten preliminary studies he did about it. The artist also experimented with various printing techniques – linocuts, etching and woodcuts – and, from 1929 onwards, he made more and more lithographs.
One of the absolute highlights of the exhibition remains "Day and Night", a print showing a Dutch landscape of fields, villages and water, with black and white birds flying over the landscape in opposite directions. This was one of his first woodcuts based on plane filling, a compositional technique in which figures repeat themselves and transform into new shapes - ploughed fields become birds; day becomes night. On the left the representation is depicted in daylight; on the right the same scene is seen in the dark.
Escher stated about this artwork that nine years ago also inspired Alexander McQueen's "Horn of Plenty" collection: "It was born logically from the associations light = day and dark = night."
The suggestion of a transition between day and night is reinforced by subtle gradations in grey tones, an effect that Escher created by using two blocks during printing. This image became one of Escher's best-selling works: in total he printed more than 650 of them.
Escher used carbon paper to transfer his representations to stone or wood and he sometimes used the same paper several times for different prints. About his technique he wrote: "A graphic artist essentially has something of a troubadour; he sings and repeats the same song in every print he makes form the same woodblock, copper plate or lithographic stone."
By exhibiting Escher's carbon paper, the Fries Museum brings visitors closer to the artist and his creative process, showing how he used Japanese paper and a bone spoon to press the ink from the wooden block onto the paper.
The museum should be praised for trying to make Escher extremely accessible, offering visitors a series of engaging satellite activities: this event is accompanied by "Phantom Limb: Art Beyond Escher", a sister exhibition featuring installations by contemporary national and international artists who, like Escher, create a world in which nothing is what it seems (the Princessehof National Museum of Ceramics is also honouring Escher with a small exhibition featuring photographs, film fragments and objects to bring the youth of Escher and the influence of ceramics on his artistry closer).
Besides, visitors can learn to make their own woodcuts in the Escher Studio, a reconstruction of his workshop in Rome, or create a selfie with the sphere in which the studio is reflected - a reference to the masterpiece "Hand with Reflecting Sphere" (1935), or they can admire the large-scale drawings creatured by street artist Leon Keer outside the museum (these diverse projects can all be accessed on the Planeet Escher site where you will also find a crocheting challenge - a citizens' initiative that attempts to break a world record via a huge blanket with Escherian motifs).
Last but not least, there is also an audio tour in which director Peter Greenaway reads from Escher's own letters, diaries and notes about his adventures, while the interactive documentary "De metamorfose van Escher" (The Metamorphosis of Escher) dissects the intricacies behind Escher's work.
And if you fancy more of Escher, well, Janelli & Volpi released a collection of Escher-inspired wallpapers that was showcased during Milan Design Week in April.
A truly large and innovative project, the collection includes "Metamorphoses" and other six murales reproducing original Escher's drawings - "Three worlds", "Up and Down", "Florescent Sea", "Drawing Hands" and "Bound of Union". Looks like this may be another annus mirabilis for the mastermind of graphic illusions M.C. Escher.
Image credits for this post
1. M.C. Escher's "Day and Night" (1938) © The M.C. Escher Company, B.V. All rights reserved. Woodcut in black and grey, printed from 2 blocks. 677 x 391mm. Collection: The M.C. Escher Company, B.V.
2 and 3 details of M.C. Escher's "Day and Night" (1938) © The M.C. Escher Company, B.V. All rights reserved. Woodcut in black and grey, printed from 2 blocks. 677 x 391mm. Collection: The M.C. Escher Company, B.V.
4. M. C. Escher, "Belvedere" (1958), lithograph
5. M. C. Escher, "Concave and Convex" (1955), lithograph
6, 7 and 8 Carbon Copies for M.C. Escher's "Day and Night" (1938) © The M.C. Escher Company, B.V. All rights reserved. Woodcut in black and grey, printed from 2 blocks. 677 x 391mm. Collection: The M.C. Escher Company, B.V.
9, 10 and 11 "Metamorphosis" and "Up & Down", Jannelli & Volpi Murales and Wallpapers from M.C. Escher's works, 2018
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