The 1st Day of the Creation 1925

M.C. Escher made this dramatic woodcut print, ‘The 1st Day of the Creation,’ sometime around Christmas 1925. Imagine Escher, carefully carving the black wood away to reveal that extraordinary bird taking flight on the first day. It reminds me of some cosmic Adam and Eve story. The texture of the rain-like lines in the sky, the strange surface of the earth with those meandering, labyrinthine lines. The way his marks give the bird's feathers a sense of depth and volume. He must have been so patient, so precise. Each mark feels considered, deliberate. There's an intensity and a rhythm to his process, a real conversation between the tool and the wood. You know, it reminds me of other printmakers like Dürer, but with Escher’s own touch of the surreal. It makes you think about how artists are always in conversation with each other, across time, each one inspiring the next to see the world in new ways.