"Print Gallery" - M.C. Escher

“Every artist dips his brush in his own soul, and paints his own nature into his pictures,” said Henry Ward Beecher. M.C. Escher uses contrast and confusion to pull in the onlooker. The spectator is obsessed to find what they want. The problem is; they don’t know what they’re looking for.

This is one of the remarkable paintings that M.C. Escher has completed. This image is called the Print Gallery. The painting twists and turns in front of a young boy gazing onward into a peaceful Mediterranean City on the water. The paintings in the hallway are set up in a straight line. These paintings are unlike any other paintings.

The artist is a master of using contrast. Even though the sun is not in the picture, you can tell that it’s rising from the upper left because the lower right side is shadowed. The shading is very precise which brings a feel of realism and depth. Escher also split his painting into four different sections. The lower left painting of a hallway has a picture that opens upward into a reality of a boat sailing by a harbor in the upper left. The upper left waterfront then travels into the upper right into a more compact town. The bottom of that town has an extended shop roof, which is also the ceiling of the museum in the lower right. From there, the hallway connects with the original bottom left. This brings the spectator a small feel of confusion.

This artist is also sending a message. He sends the spectator the message that life isn’t always what it seems. The picture twists and turns in a swooping motion. It is very similar to the problems in life and humanity’s attempts to avoid it. Anyone who accomplishes this piece is clearly a very good artist

I think that the art should be displayed for others to see, because of the talent, patience and beauty. Talent and beauty was one of the reasons M.C. Escher was greatly known for his artistic ability. He was born in 1898 and began drawing at the age of sixteen. From birth to death he made over two thousand paintings. At the age of 26, he got married to Jetta Umiker and moved to Rome for 9 years. When World War II struck, he lived and drew in the neutral country of Switzerland. M.C. Escher died of cancer in Baarn, Netherlands on March 27, 1972