Trademark Welder (September 1935) 1935

M.C. Escher made this wood engraving, Trademark Welder, in September 1935. The claustrophobic lines of the architectural structure contrast with the human form crouched inside. I wonder, what was Escher thinking about when he made this? What did he want to say? Escher was so good at creating impossible and fantastical spaces. Here, the welder seems trapped within the graphic precision of the lines, the rigid structure. His posture, so bent and constrained, emphasizes a sense of confinement. The lines of the structure loom over him, almost threatening. This creates a dialogue between the human and the architectural, the organic and the geometric. Like other artists, Escher was concerned with the relationship between form and content, between control and spontaneity. The engraver's mark is so different to the painter's brush stroke, but all artists share the same mission: to find something out through making something happen.