Whirlpools 1957

M.C. Escher made this dizzying lithograph called "Whirlpools," and it looks like he was trying to wrangle infinity onto a piece of paper! I can imagine Escher hunched over his drawing, his brow furrowed in concentration. The marks here, made with lithographic crayon, give a feeling of precision. The fish motifs repeat and converge. How did Escher manage to render it with such clarity? You get the sense he was trying to figure something out. Maybe he was thinking about the paradoxes of space and dimension, or perhaps he was just having fun pushing the limits of what a visual image can do. Escher's work often involves these kinds of impossible spaces and repeating patterns, like his famous staircases that go nowhere. He makes you question your perceptions, and that's what makes him such a fascinating artist. He’s inviting us to lose ourselves in the depths of visual possibility.