Metamorphosis II excerpt 3 1939

Here is M. C. Escher’s print, Metamorphosis II. It’s not a painting, but let’s see what happens if we consider it as one. Imagine Escher carefully inking the block, pressing the paper, pulling the print. The image itself is a puzzle, a transformation. He starts with tessellated shapes that morph through hexagons, and bees, turning finally into fish. It’s like a visual game of telephone, each form influencing the next. I imagine Escher, the printmaker, as a kind of magician. He lays down these patterns, almost like a code, and transforms them bit by bit. It’s a dance between order and chaos. It’s about finding the hidden connections, the unexpected relationships, which is what all good art does. The image shows how artists borrow, steal, and transmute – and how we keep the conversation flowing.