Portrait of a Man 1920

M.C. Escher made this black and white portrait of a man, maybe a woodcut or a lithograph? Whatever it is, I imagine Escher, deeply focused, carefully carving or drawing, the negative space around the lines becoming just as important as the lines themselves. I sympathize with Escher here, and his painstaking precision. What’s he thinking about as he makes this? Does he see this man clearly in his mind's eye, or is the portrait emerging as he works, a dance between intention and accident? There is something about these swirls that suggests the unconscious. Look at the way the lines curve and flow, creating a sense of movement, almost like water. The stark contrast of black and white heightens the drama. The image suggests a conversation between the artist and the subject. And in Escher’s wider practice, he's asking us to consider that the real and the unreal are always in dialogue. We see the world and make art from what we see, and in return our perception of the world is changed.