Citadel of Calvi Corsica 1928

M.C. Escher made this woodcut, Citadel of Calvi Corsica, by cutting into a block to leave a relief surface that’s then inked and printed. It’s all blacks and whites, but the way Escher works the tones and textures, it's like he's invented a whole new language. Look at the branches framing the citadel – they’re like dark, watchful arms. The way he’s rendered the water, with these choppy, rhythmic lines, gives it a real sense of movement. Then you have the citadel itself, this solid, imposing structure, looming over everything. Escher’s famous for his impossible geometries, but this feels different. He’s using a fairly traditional technique, but pushing it to create something that feels both real and surreal at the same time. You can see the influence of artists like Piranesi, but he takes it somewhere else entirely. In his later work like Ascending and Descending we can see Escher’s fascination with perspective and the way we perceive space deepen and mutate, almost like a premonition of digital art.