The 3rd Day of the Creation 1926

M.C. Escher made this fantastical landscape, The 3rd Day of the Creation, sometime during his lifetime using woodcut on paper. The limited palette is immediately striking, as is the balance between light and dark, solid and void. Escher’s process feels almost like a dance between control and release. You can sense the artist carefully carving away at the woodblock, each line a deliberate decision. Look at how the lines create texture and depth. The sky is a wash of horizontal marks, which, to me, feels like both a flat plane and a swirling atmosphere. Then, your eye drops down to the detailed foliage below, where every leaf, every petal, comes alive with its own unique pattern. Escher reminds me of another pattern obsessive, Gustav Klimt. Both shared a love for ornamentation and intricate detail, but while Klimt reveled in the opulence of gold, Escher found beauty in the stark contrast of black and white. Ultimately, both artists show how a conversation across time is what makes art worth looking at.