copperbadge:

I finally got a chance to peruse the Escher Archive that @levynite linked recently, and I thought I would share with you guys a few of my faves! 

The best part of this archive is that you can click the magnifying glass on any print and scroll in and out and zoom around, because frankly Escher often puts very small details into his work, and looking at them on a computer screen, they can be pretty blobby. 

Sam’s Faves: 

I love the birds of Liberation because they’re all different – it looks similar to his geometric work, like Motif With Birds, and many of them have similar shapes to each other. But even when they’re coming together as increasingly geometric shapes, in the middle, they’re all unique. (Also dramatically done in Sun and Moon.)

I had never actually seen Dragon before (pictured above) and it was only when I looked closely at it that I realized it’s a print of an imaginary papercut – the dragon’s head and the end of its tail both come through “fold outs” in the wings and body.

Double Planetoid really doesn’t come off as much of anything until you magnify it and really look at it – then you can see the little figures in the white planet gazing out at the green planet. There’s a very weird sense of peace, given how intrusive the shapes look from a distance. Particularly in the upper left quadrant I like the two little people leaning on the windowsill.

I just really love Mobius Strip II. Because of ants.