Nieuwe Kerk, Delft 1939

M.C. Escher made this drawing of the Nieuwe Kerk in Delft, with graphite, in 1939. Look at the tonality, how Escher has painstakingly built up layers of grey to create a study of the interior space. Artmaking is a process of building, adding, and sometimes taking away. There’s a stillness to the scene, despite the density of marks. The graphite sits on the page, creating a range of velvety textures. See how the light seems to cascade through the tall windows. Escher captures the quiet grandeur and scale of the architecture with subtle shifts in tone. The eye is drawn to the dark, solid pillars with their rounded edges in the foreground. They anchor the composition, contrasting with the lighter, receding spaces beyond. Escher is best known for his mind-bending, impossible constructions, but this drawing shows another side to his practice – a keen observation of space and light, that he then deconstructed and re-imagined in his more fantastical works. Think of Piranesi, who also drew architectural spaces with an almost obsessive intensity, finding both beauty and strangeness in stone and shadow.