Scholastica (Bad Dream) 1931

M.C. Escher made this wood engraving, "Scholastica (Bad Dream)" without a date. The darkness in "Scholastica" is almost total – look at the radiating lines, creating an anxious, claustrophobic feeling. I imagine Escher, hunched over a block of wood, pushing his tools through the surface, each precise line accumulating to conjure this weird scene. What was Escher thinking when he made this? Is it a nightmare he had? The scholar looks pretty shaken, kneeling there with a candle. Perhaps he is thinking of the same things I think when I am in a dream, or looking at a work of art - how did I get here? What is going to happen next? The texture of the engraving gives the whole scene a strange vibration. Escher's exploration of perspective and spatial relationships reminds me a little of some of the Renaissance guys, but in a totally different way. Artists are always in conversation, riffing off of each other across time, borrowing and transforming ideas. Isn’t it great how artists can make something so strange, yet so relatable?