Sphere Surface with Longitudinals and Latitudinals 1958

M.C. Escher made this drawing, Sphere Surface with Longitudinals and Latitudinals, at an unknown date with pencil on paper. It’s kind of fascinating to imagine Escher, known for his tessellations and impossible spaces, mapping out a sphere in this way. Look at those thin, precise lines forming the grid—you can almost feel the graphite on the paper. I wonder if he started with the basic structure, and then let his intuition guide the placement of each line, each marking. It’s like he’s building the world from scratch, one line at a time. There's something so raw and vulnerable about seeing the underlying structure, the bones of the sphere. I like to think of it as an early step in Escher's process, a way for him to grasp the mathematical and geometric principles that underpin his more complex works. Maybe this piece was a way for him to wrap his head around the fundamentals of form, before launching into the more fantastical aspects of his later works. It’s just lines on paper, but it’s also a whole world of possibilities, you know?