Hand with Fir Cone c. 1921

This black-and-white print by M.C. Escher shows a hand holding a fir cone, and when I look at it, I imagine the artist carefully carving each line into the woodblock. You can almost feel the texture of the wood and the pressure of the tool. The hand itself is rendered with a kind of flowing, organic abstraction, each line curving and swelling to give it volume and form. What was Escher thinking as he created this? Was he contemplating our relationship to nature, to the act of holding and observing? It reminds me a little of Durer’s studies of hands, but there’s something uniquely Escher about its precise yet dreamlike quality. The image feels so contemporary, as if Escher is in conversation with artists of today. His work reminds us that art is an ongoing dialogue across time, inspiring new ways of seeing and making.