Tree 1926

M.C. Escher made this woodcut, called 'Tree', using stark black ink on white paper. Just imagine him, hunched over the wood block, intensely carving away at it! I get the sense that for Escher, making this print was like mapping a mental space, a black and white world of pure geometric relationships. The way he uses all those parallel lines is kind of mesmerizing. I’m thinking about the physicality of it: the way the knife meets the wood, the pressure, the control. He’s playing with figure and ground, positive and negative space, right? The tree and the rock are these solid dark forms, but they're also defined by all that white around them. And, of course, trees have been a subject of art for centuries. Escher, with his mind-bending geometry, definitely brings something new to the conversation. We all just keep inspiring each other, don't we?