Lion of The Fountain in The Piazza al Ravello 1932

M.C. Escher made this lithograph, Lion of The Fountain in The Piazza al Ravello, using paper and ink. Just imagine him there, leaning in close to the stone lion, squinting in the Mediterranean sunlight. I'm looking at the way he's worked the graphite to create a surface that feels sculptural. See how the lion emerges from the dark, textured ground? It's like he's coaxing this winged beast out of the stone itself. Escher's use of shading almost makes the lion's face look like a theatrical mask. It reminds me of Picasso, but in a totally different register! I can imagine Escher thinking about the history of representation while he made this, nodding to ancient sculpture while messing with perspective and form. He's thinking about how to show the lion not as it is, but as it might be imagined. I feel like he is in conversation with artists across time and space who have grappled with the problem of how to render something real in two dimensions, with just paper, ink, and light.