M.C. ESCHER
In Ravello, Escher’s early prints of Italian landscapes come to life.
There one also discovers themes that reappeared later in the consciously geometrical works for which he eventually became world famous: green lizards scurry along stone walls, arches in cloisters recede to infinity, and columns, balconies, and staircases are linked in fantastic architecture.
Apalled by the rise of Fascism, Escher left Italy for Switzerland and Belgium, and then returned, for good, to his native Netherlands. But for the rest of his life, those lizards and that architecture insinuated themselves into his woodcuts and lithographs, as in a dream.
There one also discovers themes that reappeared later in the consciously geometrical works for which he eventually became world famous: green lizards scurry along stone walls, arches in cloisters recede to infinity, and columns, balconies, and staircases are linked in fantastic architecture.
Apalled by the rise of Fascism, Escher left Italy for Switzerland and Belgium, and then returned, for good, to his native Netherlands. But for the rest of his life, those lizards and that architecture insinuated themselves into his woodcuts and lithographs, as in a dream.
[ Marjorie Senechal, ed. “Parallel Worlds: Escher and Mathematics, Revisited,” The Mathematical Intelligencer, vol. 21, no. 1 (1999) 17 ]
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