Ancona (November 1936) 1936

Editor: This is M.C. Escher's "Ancona (November 1936)," a black and white print from 1936. The architecture looks imposing, almost daunting, constructed through dense crosshatching. What’s your take on this piece? Curator: I'm immediately drawn to Escher’s printmaking process here. The meticulous labor required to create this image—think about the tools, the materials, the sheer time commitment! And look at the way the cross-hatching isn't just descriptive, it's constitutive. The lines don’t simply depict the buildings; they *form* them, calling attention to their material construction. Editor: So it's not just about the cityscape itself, but the labor embedded in its representation? Curator: Precisely. Consider the broader social context: it's 1936, and the world is grappling with the Depression. There is value, here, of representing not only architecture as static subject but its relationship to craft, skill, and time and labour invested in its manufacture through printing technologies. Escher seems acutely aware of how labor shapes not just buildings, but the very images we use to understand them. What do you make of the perspective? Editor: It's kind of a dizzying perspective, high up, and looking down, which contributes to the intimidating effect. Curator: Indeed, and how the perspective plays into this question of materiality and process. It invites the viewer to really contemplate the physical structure depicted *and* the art of building representation. Is this simply a representation of reality? No, rather, the image prompts questions of artifice, production and labor, and representation and its ideological implications. Editor: I never thought about perspective being related to labor and social class. That’s definitely changed how I see Escher's work! Curator: Absolutely, art doesn’t exist in a vacuum, after all! Everything that comprises it including materiality, geography, process and more influences how we read art and how we create it.