Meditate with Maurits Cornelis Escher (1898-1972)

We are in 1936. The Dutch artist Maurits Escher visits for the second time in his life Alhambra, in Granada, Spain. The first time was fourteen years ago. He was only 24 years old. For the young man at the time as for the mature man today, the experience is every time overwhelming.

On the walls of this amazing “Red Château”, witness to the Arab-Muslim artistic genius of the 13th and 14th century, the patterns in white stucco and in colorful mosaics are a revelation for the North Man. It must be said that here, the geometric patterns and the art of artistic paving is pushed to summits of craftsmanship.

Upon his return to Brussels, in Belgium, where he is installed, Escher will in turn explore this world of subtle interlacing, crossed perspectives and shifting rehearsals, as many reasons secretly animated by mathematical laws which fascinate him.

The artist also has fun. He thus introduced his passion for landscapes and creatures there. In this aerial view, it represents, for example, these large plains of the “flat country”, with their share of plots of cultivated land. Escher thus finds a pattern in this natural checkerboard. He overlaps another, much more surprising: that of the flight of wild geese which, over their seasonal wanderings, advance above the canals and villages.

To top it all, Escher introduces a symmetrical plan to make this amazing mirror between the black geese of the day and the white geese of the night. And the metamorphosis operates. That of light darkness and dark clarities.

To see within the exhibition “MC Escher”, at EDF Bazacle spaces, in Toulouse (Haute-Garonne). Until March 30, 2025.