Design for Wrapping-paper: Jemoli 1933

This wrapping paper design by M.C. Escher features 'Jemoli' lettering on a beige ground, a tessellating pattern made for a department store. You know, it's easy to see Escher as just this cerebral, mathematical artist. But imagine him at the drawing board, wrestling with these letters, trying to make them fit together like puzzle pieces. I bet he was thinking about that word ‘Jemoli,’ turning it over and over again in his mind, trying to find the right angle. It’s a dance between order and chaos, a quest for the perfect fit. I love the texture created by the stippled pen strokes that fill each letter form. Each hexagonal opening becomes a kind of void, a chance for the pattern to breathe, or maybe they're like cells multiplying, a metaphor for the consumer society that the paper was made to wrap. Escher’s work always makes me think about the limits of perception, and how much beauty can be found in repetition, in the infinite possibilities of a simple form.