Castrovalva is a lithograph print by the Dutch artist M. C. Escher, first printed in February 1930. Like many of Escher's early works, it depicts a place that he visited on a tour of Italy.
It depicts the Abruzzo village of Castrovalva, which lies at the top of a sheer slope. The perspective is toward the northwest, from the narrow trail on the left which, at the point from which this view is seen, makes a hairpin turn to the right, descending to the valley. In the foreground at the side of the trail, there are several flowering plants, grasses, ferns, a beetle and a snail. In the expansive valley below there are cultivated fields and two more towns, the nearest of which is Anversa degli Abruzzi, with Casale in the distance.
In popular culture
Seen from the bend where Escher made the lithograph
Maurits Cornelis Escher was a Dutch graphic artist who made mathematically inspired woodcuts, lithographs, and mezzotints. Despite wide popular interest, Escher was for most of his life neglected in the art world, even in his native Netherlands. He was 70 before a retrospective exhibition was held. In the late twentieth century, he became more widely appreciated, and in the twenty-first century he has been celebrated in exhibitions around the world.
The Penrose triangle, also known as the Penrose tribar, the impossible tribar, or the impossible triangle, is a triangular impossible object, an optical illusion consisting of an object which can be depicted in a perspective drawing, but cannot exist as a solid object. It was first created by the Swedish artist Oscar Reutersvärd in 1934. Independently from Reutersvärd, the triangle was devised and popularized in the 1950s by psychiatrist Lionel Penrose and his son, prominent Nobel Prize-winning mathematician Sir Roger Penrose, who described it as "impossibility in its purest form". It is featured prominently in the works of artist M. C. Escher, whose earlier depictions of impossible objects partly inspired it.
The Penrose stairs or Penrose steps, also dubbed the impossible staircase, is an impossible object created by Oscar Reutersvärd in 1937 and later independently discovered and made popular by Lionel Penrose and his son Roger Penrose. A variation on the Penrose triangle, it is a two-dimensional depiction of a staircase in which the stairs make four 90-degree turns as they ascend or descend yet form a continuous loop, so that a person could climb them forever and never get any higher. This is clearly impossible in three-dimensional Euclidean geometry but possible in some non-eucliean geometry like in nil geometry.
Regular Division of the Plane is a series of drawings by the Dutch artist M. C. Escher which began in 1936. These images are based on the principle of tessellation, irregular shapes or combinations of shapes that interlock completely to cover a surface or plane.
Metamorphosis II is a woodcut print by the Dutch artist M. C. Escher. It was created between November, 1939 and March, 1940. The print measures 19.2 by 389.5 centimetres and was printed from 20 blocks on 3 combined sheets. Metamorphosis II is a long, horizontal piece which depicts animals and other forms gradually transforming into each other.
Relativity is a lithograph print by the Dutch artist M. C. Escher, first printed in December 1953. The first version of this work was a woodcut made earlier that same year.
Waterfall is a lithograph by the Dutch artist M. C. Escher, first printed in October 1961. It shows a perpetual motion machine where water from the base of a waterfall appears to run downhill along the water path before reaching the top of the waterfall.
Metamorphosis III is a woodcut print by the Dutch artist M. C. Escher created during 1967 and 1968. Measuring 19 cm × 680 cm, it is Escher's largest print. It was printed on thirty-three blocks on six combined sheets, mounted on canvas, and partly coloured by hand. Metamorphosis III is an expanded version of Metamorphosis II, a piece which Escher had executed earlier in his career.
Stars is a wood engraving print created by the Dutch artist M. C. Escher in 1948, depicting two chameleons in a polyhedral cage floating through space.
Drawing Hands is a lithograph by the Dutch artist M. C. Escher first printed in January 1948. It depicts a sheet of paper, out of which two hands rise, in the paradoxical act of drawing one another into existence. This is one of the most obvious examples of Escher's common use of paradox.
Castrovalva is the first serial of the 19th season of the British science fiction television series Doctor Who, which was first broadcast in four twice-weekly parts on BBC1 from 4 to 12 January 1982. It was the first full serial to feature Peter Davison as the Fifth Doctor. The title is a reference to the lithograph Castrovalva by M. C. Escher, which depicts the town Castrovalva in the Abruzzo region, Italy.
The Droste effect, known in art as an example of mise en abyme, is the effect of a picture recursively appearing within itself, in a place where a similar picture would realistically be expected to appear. This produces a loop which mathematically could go on forever, but in practice only continues as far as the image's resolution allows.
Ascending and Descending is a lithograph print by the Dutch artist M. C. Escher first printed in March 1960.
There are numerous references to Dutch painter M.C. Escher in popular culture.
Castrovalva is a frazione of Anversa degli Abruzzi, a comune in the Province of L'Aquila in the Abruzzo, region of Italy. The village, which clings to the top of a steep hill, was depicted in M.C. Escher's 1930 lithograph "Castrovalva". The first serial of the 19th season in the British science fiction television series Doctor Who is entitled Castrovalva, which was first broadcast in 1982.
Castrovalva may refer to:
Print Gallery is a lithograph printed in 1956 by the Dutch artist M. C. Escher. It depicts a man in a gallery viewing a print of a seaport, and among the buildings in the seaport is the very gallery in which he is standing, making use of the Droste effect with visual recursion. The lithograph has attracted discussion in both mathematical and artistic contexts. Escher considered Print Gallery to be among the best of his works.
Circle Limit III is a woodcut made in 1959 by Dutch artist M. C. Escher, in which "strings of fish shoot up like rockets from infinitely far away" and then "fall back again whence they came".
Dragon is a wood engraving print created by Dutch artist M. C. Escher in April 1952, depicting a folded paper dragon perched on a pile of crystals. It is part of a sequence of images by Escher depicting objects of ambiguous dimension, including also Three Spheres I, Doric Columns, Drawing Hands and Print Gallery.
Double Planetoid is a wood engraving print by the Dutch artist M. C. Escher, first printed in 1949.
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