Puddle (M. C. Escher)

Last updated
Puddle
Escher Puddle.jpg
Artist M. C. Escher
Year1952
Type woodcut
Dimensions24 cm× 31.9 cm(9.4 in× 12.6 in)

Puddle is a woodcut print by the Dutch artist M. C. Escher, first printed in February 1952.

Since 1936, Escher's work had become primarily focused on paradoxes, tessellation and other abstract visual concepts. This print, however, is a realistic depiction of a simple image that portrays two perspectives at once. It depicts an unpaved road with a large pool of water in the middle of it at twilight. Turning the print upside-down and focusing strictly on the reflection in the water, it becomes a depiction of a forest with a full moon overhead. The road is soft and muddy and in it there are two distinctly different sets of tire tracks, two sets of footprints going in opposite directions and two bicycle tracks. Escher has thus captured three elements: the water, sky and earth.[ citation needed ]

See also

Sources

Related Research Articles

M. C. Escher Dutch graphic artist (1898–1972)

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.

Penrose triangle Impossible object

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.

<i>Castrovalva</i> (M. C. Escher)

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.

Metamorphosis I is a woodcut print by the Dutch artist M. C. Escher which was first printed in May, 1937. This piece measures 19.5 cm × 90.8 cm and is printed on two sheets.

<i>Metamorphosis II</i> Woodcut print by M. C. Escher

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.

<i>Reptiles</i> (M. C. Escher) Dutch 1943 lithograph

Reptiles is a lithograph print by the Dutch artist M. C. Escher first printed in March 1943. It touches on the theme found in much of his work of mathematics in art.

<i>Three Spheres II</i>

Three Spheres II is a lithograph print by the Dutch artist M. C. Escher first printed in April 1946.

<i>Relativity</i> (M. C. Escher) Print by M. C. Escher

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.

<i>Three Worlds</i> (Escher) Lithograph by Dutch artist M. C. Escher

Three Worlds is a lithograph print by the Dutch artist M. C. Escher first printed in December 1955.

<i>Belvedere</i> (M. C. Escher) Lithograph print by Dutch artist M. C. Escher

Belvedere is a lithograph print by the Dutch artist M. C. Escher, first printed in May 1958. It shows a plausible-looking belvedere building that is an impossible object, modelled after an impossible cube.

<i>Waterfall</i> (M. C. Escher) Lithograph print by M. C. Escher

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.

<i>Metamorphosis III</i> Woodcut print by M. C. Escher

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.

<i>Stars</i> (M. C. Escher) Wood engraving print by M. C. Escher

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.

Droste effect Recursive visual effect

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.

Escher in the Palace Art, prints, drawing museum in The Hague, Netherlands

Escher in Het Paleis is a museum in The Hague, Netherlands, featuring the works of the Dutch graphical artist M. C. Escher. It is housed in the Lange Voorhout Palace since November 2002.

<i>Ascending and Descending</i> 1960 lithograph by M. C. Escher

Ascending and Descending is a lithograph print by the Dutch artist M. C. Escher first printed in March 1960.

<i>Sky and Water I</i>

Sky and Water I is a woodcut print by the Dutch artist M. C. Escher first printed in June 1938. of this print is a regular division of the plane consisting of birds and fish. Both prints have the horizontal series of these elements—fitting into each other like the pieces of a jigsaw puzzle—in the middle, transitional portion of the prints. In this central layer the pictorial elements are equal: birds and fish are alternately foreground or background, depending on whether the eye concentrates on light or dark elements. The birds take on an increasing three-dimensionality in the upward direction, and the fish, in the downward direction. But as the fish progress upward and the birds downward they gradually lose their shapes to become a uniform background of sky and water, respectively.

<i>Print Gallery</i> (M. C. Escher) Lithograph printed in 1956 by the Dutch artist M. C. Escher

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.

<i>Circle Limit III</i>

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".

<i>Dragon</i> (M. C. Escher)

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.