Escher and Me

I know all about M.C. Escher. Read the bios. Know of his life, where he was born, where he lived, where he died, who was married to and all that stuff. Tell ya what - none of that really matters. I don't need to know anything at all about the man to know about his work. It's his work, after all, that matters. At least to me. I first ran into Escher's work when I was 16. That was a lifetime ago. It appeared, believe it or not, in my geometry textbook in high school. I can still recall seeing "Ascending and Descending" for the first time. The monastic-looking structure, the steps that go up and around and run right back into themselves. Physically impossible in the known universe. Tricky even on paper without bending the rules of perspective. And all of those robot-like monks marching endlessly up and down the stairs, not looking to the left or the right, not speaking to each other, just marching. Another monk stands on the balcony, looking up at the climbers, almost bemused at them. Yet another sits on the stairs below, head in hands, looking out on...nothing. For nothing else lies round about the bizarre building. It pops up out of its barren landscape like a bunch of building blocks stacked on a white table. Even at 16, I knew that this was as much a critique of modern life as it was a study in perspective. Identical individuals marching in an interminable cycle up and down a never-ending stair case in a world devoid of any color. Not unlike the corporate world. It's a masterpiece.

Other pictures were included in that textbook, pictures that have become as familiar to me as my own face: "Belvedere," the structure that seems to turn inside out; "Waterfall," where the mill race continually feeds itself in a never-ending loop; and "Relativity III," where residence dwell harmoniously in an apartment block that exists on multiple planes simultaneously. These are all wonderful drawings, fun and puzzling and masterfully done. As the years went by, I began to seek out Escher's prints. I've hung them on my walls, had books of his prints on my coffee tables, doodled them in the margins of my notes in college classes and in business meetings (I'm a compulsive doodler). It is safe to say that he ranks up there as one of my favorite artists. I put him along side Vincent Van Gogh, Edward Hopper and Jack Vettriano. I love all of their works for varying reasons that I will not go into right now. For Escher's though, it's the buildings and scenery, as well as the fact that he did the bulk of his work in woodblock and lithograph, which lends it a sort of primitive air. The wood block prints are stark in their bold slabs and streaks of black and white. The lithographs are softer, composed of myriad shades of grey. Both speak to me. As do the buildings themselves. I've written before of "Still Life and Street Scene" and "The Bridge." Those structures call me to them, and I find myself wishing I was living in them. Strange, I know, but art is a powerful thing.

All of this brings me to one of my all-time favorite Escher prints. Can't say it's a favorite hands down, because it's too hard for me to point to just one of his works and say, "Yup, that's the best one." But "Day and Night" ranks right up at the top. Have I said this before? Well, never mind, I'll say it again. I love this print. To me, it's stunning. White birds fly from left to right across the page, black birds fly from right to left; white birds dragging the daylight into the darkness, black birds drawing the night across the day. Beneath them, two identical but mirrored scenes of the Dutch countryside, one in the daylight, the other bathed in night. A small village on a river, surrounded by a patchwork quilt of fields. A windmill (there has to be a windmill), a church, shops and homes. A river boat hauls barges past the town. In the center, where the chessboard pattern of the fields meets, the squares distort and merge into the bodies of the flock of birds. Night into day, day into night. It's the graphic representation of our diurnal existence, day following night following day. It's a geometric Yin and Yang, a little light in all darkness, a little good in all evil, and vice-a-verse. The constant struggle to be good, to do good, to live a good life in a world where the darkness is always encroaching. It takes a master to create something that can say so much in one glance.