heliogravure, paper, 31 x 23 cm
color heliogravure, high-grain velin paper, 31 x 23 cm (plate imprint), framed in passe - partout 47 x 37 cm, numbered in pencil 19/75, signed from plate under composition "Renoir", publisher's dry stamp l. d.: letter 'K' surrounded by the words "EDITION LIMITED CERTIFIED ARTS USA EUROPE SINCE 1998". Original publisher's certificate attached.
Maurits Cornelis Escher is a Dutch printmaker, considered the most famous artist in the world of science. His mathematically-inspired works are based on the phenomenon of optical illusion, thus deceiving our senses and presenting seemingly impossible forms.
He encapsulated his artistic and life credo in one sentence: "Only those who devote themselves to the absurd will achieve the impossible. I think it's in my basement... I'll go upstairs right now and check," thus creating the motto for his most famous, visually breakneck graphics.
In this composition, Escher uses two-dimensionality to depict objects free from the constraints of the three-dimensional world. The painting depicts a rectangular three-story building. The upper two floors are open on the sides, while the upper floor and roof are supported by pillars. From the viewer's point of view, all the pillars on the middle floor are the same size both in front and behind, but the pillars at the back are set higher. The viewer can also see from the corners of the top floor that it is at a different angle than the rest of the structure. All of these elements allow all of the pillars on the middle floor to be set at right angles, while the pillars at the front support the back side of the floor, while the pillars at the back support the front side.
This paradox also allows the ladder to extend from the inside of the middle floor to the outside of the top floor.
At the foot of the building stands a man holding an impossible cube. He appears to be constructing it from a drawing of a Necker cube lying at his feet, with the intersecting lines marked. The window next to it is closed with an iron grille, which is geometrically possible but practically impossible to fit. The woman climbing the steps of the building is modeled on a drawing from the right panel of Hieronymus Bosch's The Garden of Earthly Delights (a triptych from 1500). This panel is titled Hell; part of it was reproduced by Escher as a lithograph in 1935. The ridge in the background is part of Mount Morrone in Abruzzo. Escher was on it several times when he lived in Italy in the 1920s and 1930s.
