Snakes 1969

Editor: This is M.C. Escher's "Snakes," created in 1969. It's a drawing done with pen, and the swirling pattern gives me a slight sense of vertigo, but I can't stop looking. What stands out to you most when you look at it? Curator: The visual tension, certainly. The snakes, symbols of primal instinct and sometimes of healing, are inextricably linked with the geometric lattice. Don’t you find the weaving pattern almost mandala-like, suggestive of ancient cosmological diagrams? Escher's works often played with impossible realities. Editor: Definitely, I can see the mandala in it! So you’re saying the snakes and the geometric pattern represent two contrasting ideas, instinct versus…order? Curator: Perhaps order is too simplistic. Consider it a struggle between the organic, the serpentine—life itself—and the human need to categorize, to impose a system onto chaos. Look at how the scales are carefully drawn, then juxtaposed against the mathematical precision of the weaving. This creates a fascinating psychological tension. Where does one end and the other begin? Editor: It's a bit unsettling now that you mention the tension, I hadn’t thought of it that way. The pattern felt soothing, but now I feel the push and pull. Curator: Isn't that often the case with powerful symbols? They lull us into a sense of familiarity while simultaneously carrying complex, even contradictory, meanings within. The Ouroboros is referenced, in which a snake is eating its tail: a powerful ancient symbol for constant re-creation, which further supports Escher's genius of his visual continuity. Editor: That’s so interesting. It shows how much symbolism can be embedded in an image even if we don’t consciously register it all at first. Curator: Precisely! Symbols whisper across cultures and time, resonating with layers of meaning beyond immediate perception. It’s about deciphering that visual language.