Welcome to the M.C. Escher Annotated Gallery!

This page is barely started, and is still very much under construction.

This is a gallery of a few Escher drawings, lithographs, and woodcuts. There are two nice things about this gallery: first, the images live on various FTP servers around the U.S. and Europe, and second, each picture is accompanied by the date, media, and some commentary (usually by Escher himself) regarding that particular work. This gallery will eventually contain representative works from the following categories:

• Early Works
• Graphic Works
• Impossible Realities
• Tiling the Plane
• Filling Space
• Sculptures, Tapestries, Etc.
• Later Works

M.C. Escher preferred to work with indirect media. He rarely produced a finished work as a painting or drawing. Instead, he would produce one or more negative images by cutting them into wood or metal. Then, he would produce a small number of prints, and afterwards destroy the cuts from which the prints were made. Original prints of Escher works are highly prized.

Early Works

These works date from before 1937.

 Tree, 1919

Woodcut
I think this very early print shows the beginning of Escher's interest in juxtaposing simple and complex shapes. Like many of his works, there is a little observer in the scene.

 Eight Heads, 1922

Woodcut, stamp-printed
This is one of the first divisions of a plane crafted by M.C. Escher, his start on a style that would help make him famous. This particular woodcut tiles the plane infinitely in both directions.

Tower of Babel, 1928

Woodcut 62x38.5 cm
Escher wrote this about his early masterpiece of perspective:

On the assumption that the period of language confusion coincided with the emergence of different races, some of the building workers are white and others black. The work is at a standstill because they are no longer able to understand each other. Seeing that the climax of the drama takes place at the summit of the tower which is under construction, the building has been shown from above, as though from a bird's eye view. This called for a sharply receding perspective. It was not until twenty years later that this problem was thoroughly thought out.

Inside St. Peter's, 1935

Wood-engraving, 24x32 cm
Escher visited Rome many times, and presumably visited St. Peter's Cathedral prior to making this wood-engraving. In his own words:


The convergence of the vertical lines towards the nadir suggests the height of the building in which the viewer finds himself, together with the feeling of vertigo that takes hold of him when he looks down.

Graphic Works

Drop (a.k.a. Dewdrop), 1948

This beautiful realistic image of a leaf shows Escher's artistic sense and his mastery of the mezzotint form. The lighting around the edges of the leaf is great. Does anybody know what species of plant this might be?

Gravity, 1952

Lithograph and watercolor, 30x30 cm

This work is one of the boldest and most striking of Escher's work involving polyhedra, despite its simplicity. The figure is a stellate dodecahedron; presumably there are twelve of the peculiar tail-less beasts, although we can only see nine of them.

Depth, 1955

Woodcut printed from 3 blocks

In this print, space is divided up cubically. Each fish is found at the intersection of three lines of fish, all of which cross each other at right angles.

Convex and Concave, 1955

Lithograph, 28x33.5 cm

This evocative drawing shows some funny little buildings, and some cool lizards, but with an interesting twist. Escher wrote this about the work:

Three little houses stand near one another, each under a cross-vaulted roof. We have an exterior view of the left-hand house, an interior view of the right-hand one, and either an exterior or interior view of the one in the middle, according to choice. There are several similar inversions illustrated in this print; let us describe one of them. Two boys are seen, [each] playing a flute. The one on the left is looking down through a window onto the roof of the middle house; if he were to climb out of the window he could stand on the roof. And then if he were to jump down in front of it he would land up one story lower, on the dark colored floor before the house. And yet, the right-hand flute player who regards that same cross-vault as a roof curving above his head, will find, if he climbs out of his windows, that there is no floor for him to land on, only a fathomless abyss.

Impossible Realities

Other World, 1947

woodcut printed from three blocks, 32x26 cm

This is one of Escher's most famous works that depict an impossible juxtaposition of viewpoints. The 1946 "Gallery" is very similar, but it also shows an infinite extent. Later works like this "Other World" included one or the other theme, but only "Gallery" uses both. Perhaps Escher felt that using both devices in one print diluted their effect?

Ascending and Descending, 1960

lithograph, 38x28.5 cm

At first glance, this print appears to be no more than a realistic depiction of a building and some monks. At closer examination, we find it to be a little more. Escher wrote this about the work:

The endless stairs which are the main motif of this picture were taken from an article by L.S. and R. Penrose in the February, 1958 issue of the British Journal of Psychology. A rectangular inner courtyard is bounded by a building that is rooted in a never-ending stairway. The inhabitants of these living quarters would appear to be monks, adherents of some unknown sect. Perhaps it is their ritual duty to climb those stairs for a few hours each day. It would seem that when they get tired they are allowed to turn about and go downstairs instead of up. Yet both directions, though not without meaning, are equally useless. Two recalcitrant individuals refuse, for the time being, to take any part in this exercise.

Tiling the Plane

Sky and Water 1, 1938

lithograph, 44x44 cm

This is an early work that exhibits a plane tiling composed of two different shapes. Escher wrote about it:

In the horizontal central strip there are birds and fish equivalent to each other. We associate flying things with the sky, and so for each of the bloack birds the sky in which it is flying is formed by the four white fish that encircle it. Similarly, swimming makes us think of water, and therefore the four black birds that surround a fish become the water in which it swims.

Reptiles, 1943

Lithograph, 33.4x38.5 cm

This popular work incorporates a 1939 symmetry study into a little story. The alligator-like reptile heaves himself out of the drawing pad, goes for a little journey, and then rejoins his fellows. (The detail on the body movements of the reptile is marvelous, especially considering that Escher almost certainly never owned any kind of lizard as a pet.)

Sun and Moon, 1948

woodcut printed from four blocks, 25x27.5 cm

This very popular work shows that by 1948 Escher had become very confident and accomplished with techniques for tiling the plane. It shows very clearly the distinction we draw between "figure" and "ground" in a picture. Escher wrote:

The subject of this colored woodcut is once again the contrast between day and night. But in this instance, the two notions are not, as in Day and Night, pictured as next to each other but in the same place - though not simultaneous, being separated by a leap of the mind.

Later Works

These works date from after 1960.

Waterfall, 1961

Lithograph, 38x30 cm

This print is a variation on the theme of a perspective illusion, also shown in "Ascending and Decending". Penrose's so-called 'impossible triangle' appears three times in the water trough structure.

Mobius Strip II (Red Ants), 1963

Woodcut printed from three blocks, 45x20 cm

In this colorful print, several ants crawl endlessly on grid-like surface. Escher explained it this way:

An endless ring-shaped band usually has two distinct surfaces, one inside and one outside. Yet on this strip nine red ants crawl after each other and travel the front side as well as the reverse side. Therefore the strip has only one surface.