Still Life and Street
Encyclopedia
Still Life and Street is a woodcut
print by the Dutch
artist M. C. Escher
which was first printed in March, 1937. It was his first print of an impossible reality. In this artwork we have two quite distinctly recognizable realities bound together in a natural, and yet at the same time a completely impossible, way. Looked at from the window, the houses make book-rests between which tiny dolls are set up. Looked at from the street, the books stand yards high and a gigantic tobacco jar stands at the crossroads.
A small street in Savona, near Genoa, was the inspiration for this work. Escher said it was one of his favorite drawings and thought he could have drawn it better.
This image is a classic example of Escher’s plays on perspective
. In it, the horizontal plane of the table continues into the distance to become the street, and the rows of books on the table are seen to lean against the tall buildings that line the street.
Woodcut
Woodcut—occasionally known as xylography—is a relief printing artistic technique in printmaking in which an image is carved into the surface of a block of wood, with the printing parts remaining level with the surface while the non-printing parts are removed, typically with gouges...
print by the Dutch
Netherlands
The Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...
artist M. C. Escher
M. C. Escher
Maurits Cornelis Escher , usually referred to as M. C. Escher , was a Dutch graphic artist. He is known for his often mathematically inspired woodcuts, lithographs, and mezzotints...
which was first printed in March, 1937. It was his first print of an impossible reality. In this artwork we have two quite distinctly recognizable realities bound together in a natural, and yet at the same time a completely impossible, way. Looked at from the window, the houses make book-rests between which tiny dolls are set up. Looked at from the street, the books stand yards high and a gigantic tobacco jar stands at the crossroads.
A small street in Savona, near Genoa, was the inspiration for this work. Escher said it was one of his favorite drawings and thought he could have drawn it better.
This image is a classic example of Escher’s plays on perspective
Perspective (visual)
Perspective, in context of vision and visual perception, is the way in which objects appear to the eye based on their spatial attributes; or their dimensions and the position of the eye relative to the objects...
. In it, the horizontal plane of the table continues into the distance to become the street, and the rows of books on the table are seen to lean against the tall buildings that line the street.
Sources
- Locher, J.L. (2000). The Magic of M. C. Escher. Harry N. Abrams, Inc. ISBN 0-8109-6720-0.