The surreal world
Escher exhibition presents patterns, strange realities and reptiles
Maurits Cornelis Escher saw the world differently. The Dutch artist created a few dozen images that, because of his peculiar perspective, have endured. But many of those images — two hands drawing each other, impossible architectural constructions with perpetually flowing water, lizards and other creatures emerging from sketch to reality — haven’t exactly helped canonize Escher as a major artist of the 20th century. Rather he has become the da Vinci of the dormitory — an artist whose work has become widespread on posters, T-shirts and calendars.
Michael S. Sachs is a participant in the commodification of Escher — he wears a necktie and wristwatch bearing Escher images — but he’d like to see Escher treated with a mix of the wonder that so many of us bring to Escher’s work when we are younger, accompanied by recognition of a meticulous theoretician, craftsman and artist.
“People say, ‘He’s not an artist, he does this gimmicky thing,’” Sachs says. “He could draw as well as anybody. He decided to do this modern work. He chose it. And it exhibits consummate craftsmanship.”
Befitting its subject, “Virtual Realities: The Art of M.C. Escher from the Michael S. Sachs Collection” is a mind-bending exhibition opening this weekend at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. Roughly 475 items are on display, charting Escher’s evolution through woodcuts, lithographs, sketches, linocuts, watercolors, mezzotints. Contrasted with Escher’s reputation for reproduction, these pieces explode in person.
“It brings a whole new light to Escher, seeing these in person, not just in a book or a reproduction or a poster,” says Dena Woodall, curator, prints and drawings at the MFAH. “That’s the way a lot of us learned about Escher. But for me, this has been a revelation.”
The depth and precision of Escher’s lines here pull eyes in close. The conceptual framework is better appreciated. Several of the actual pieces of wood he cut are on display, and they create conversation with works on the wall, illustrating the depth of work by an artist who thought multidimensionally.
Sachs acquired around 90 percent of Escher’s estate in 1980, nearly a decade after the artist’s death.
“I have buddies who collect Eschers, who are serious about it and spend lots of money,” he says. “They’d come here and die for these.”
Reflections and patterns
Sachs is eager to guide viewers through Escher’s work, though he stops at “Hand With Reflecting Globe.” The famed 1935 lithograph of Escher looking into a reflective globe is one of the artist’s most famous images. Because Escher worked his way toward being ambidextrous, viewing the piece makes it difficult to discern which hand is doing the drawing and which holds the globe when you consider the printing process and the image.
“You’re on your own,” Sachs says.
But more often, Sachs identifies the elements that make Escher’s work distinctive. He finds three elements that can be identified in some of the artist’s best-known works: tessellation, or a tiling surface using multiple geometric shapes; metamorphosis, or the ways his images undergo gradual transformations; and a play between twoand three-dimensions, as when a sketch of a lizard yields a more lifelike lizard that crawls off the page.
Escher referred to “Dragon” from 1942 as an “obstinate beast.”
“Escher talked about how the dragon realizes he’s on a piece of paper, two-dimensionally,” Sachs says. “And he doesn’t like that. He’s a living, three-dimensional figure. So he’s trying to prove here, he’s three-dimensional. It’s a perfect example of how he works between twoand three-dimensional.”
Sachs very much wants people to understand the processes undertaken by the artist to create these works, both creatively and technically. “Virtual Realities” accomplishes both. Graph paper studies show how Escher envisioned and executed the bulging exterior of “Balconies.” But the pieces of wood and linoleum from Sachs’ collection are crucial to under
standing the painstaking processes in arriving at his works.
Several implements harmonize to tell the story of “Stars,” in which Escher placed a pair of chameleons into a geometric figure. One version of the work boasts six colors, but only three wood blocks that allowed Escher to execute the vision.
“It’s a true feat of printmaking,” Sachs says, an understatement.
Printing process
So many iconic Escher images are included in the exhibition. But the real joy in “Virtual Realities” is seeing signature ideas and styles emerge from traditions like reptiles from his sketch books. Gary Tinterow, executive director of the MFAH, points to some early pieces he feels connects Escher’s work to a Dutch tradition that also informed Piet Mondrian. He cites Escher’s distinctive anamorphic perspective, offering strong but distorted points of view.
The exhibition follows Escher’s work from the Netherlands to Rome and Spain. While landscapes and architecture changed based on place, Escher’s fascination with presentation also evolved sharply.
With Escher temptation is to fall into the conceptual nature of his work: the impossible buildings and the ways patterns evolve across space. Tinterow points to the piece de resistance in the show, a sprawling and densely tessellated “Metamorphose” which starts with the titular word, evolves into a checkerboard pattern, then lizards, wasps, horses, birds and buildings before morphing into a chess board. The piece is several feet long, and its corresponding wood plates are an awe-inspiring counterpart.
Still, the ubiquitous nature of Escher’s work had some effect of softening his renown. Sachs hopes to inform about the processes and works that resulted.
“If you take a (Marc) Chagall watercolor or a (Alexander) Calder watercolor, you photograph it, print it on lithographic paper in an edition of 100, signed and numbered, it’s not the same thing,” Sachs says. “It’s not the same as when you have an artist who used a wood block and cut into it, and you print directly from that.”
Tinterow says laughing, “it’s easier to make a drawing than a print.” The laborious process feels alive here.
Sachs says these works — whether cut into wood or metal or linoleum — “offer a direct connection to the artist. The artist worked on their surface. There’s no intervening camera or machine. My father was a businessman, but a sophisticated businessman. He could never understand why any piece of paper was worth more than $5. It’s because they’re a direct connection with the artist.”
Old virtual realities
While “Virtual Realities” seeks to present a fuller etching of Escher, the exhibition still leans into the visceral response his works prompt. Knowing the process adds to the awe, but they’re still visionary pieces capable of connecting with viewers old and very young. Though Woodall points out that Escher wasn’t a standout student with regard to mathematics, his work speaks to mathematicians. “They feel like he could conceptualize their theories,” she says. Scientists and naturalists are also fond of Escher, who was intrigued by their fields of study.
A small room has been arranged with a deceptive floor and ceiling to offer some feeling of standing inside an Escher work. A black light room presents a rainbow of color at the exhibition’s end, showing how his concepts and images are so often co-opted.
“Virtual Realities” spans nearly a half century of work from Escher’s life. His last piece was created in 1969, and he died three years later.
Some of the tessellated works are done in watercolor, gorgeous patterns that Escher kept in file folders in a drawer for years. Sachs marvels at a tapestry, a tessellated mix of demons and angels.
“It looks so much better on the wall here with this lighting…”
He lets the thought linger.
“Escher never sold a drawing or watercolors or any constructed objects,” he says. “He kept them until the end of his life. What makes this collection and exhibition unique is these drawings, the watercolors, the printing plates. They show the process. We know people are interested in his work. I hope the general public also finds the process interesting. To see his process.”