*’Īlthough he very much enjoyed making these tessellations, he had little success selling them. It offers the sensation of approaching something both ancient and eternal. The ‘discovery’ of such a pattern which, according to a certain system, repeats itself rhythmically and as such is dependent on unwavering laws, has always been and continues to bring me great joy. What interested me most was the dual function of the dividing line between two adjacent figures, as it is equally as indispensable for one pattern as for the other. It was partly due to circumstances that it wasn’t until 1936 after a second visit to the Alhambra that I devoted a large part of my time to toying with animal shapes. I exhibited these stamped works, but had little success with them. ‘I needed at least three colours to cover my stamp block in order to get one pattern to contrast with the repeating congruent repetitions of that pattern. 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. He first started making tessellations some ten years earlier. 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. 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. They show development, but are also part of a development. Development I and Development II are both prints in which Escher attempts to find a satisfactory way to express the concept of ‘infinity’.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |