Gallery Tour - Introduction
"There is tremendous satisfaction to be derived from the acquisition of artistic skill and the achievement of a thorough understanding of the properties of the material to hand, and in learning with true purposefulness and control to use the tools which one has available -- above all, one's own hands!" -- M.C. Escher |
This is Maurits Conelis Escher (more commonly known as M.C. Escher). He was born in June 1898 in Holland, now the Netherlands. Escher traveled around Europe extensively, creating images wherever he went. In this gallery tour, we are going to examine a few of his art works.
Before we look at the images, it is important to know what tools the artist used to create his artworks. For the majority of his pieces, Escher used one of two mediums (ways of making art): woodcuts and lithographs. In many of his early pieces, Escher also experimented with linocuts
Linocuts and woodcuts are created in the same way, however the materials are quite different. As well, there are slight differences in the quality of the print made from wood and linoleum. In woodcuts, Escher was able to create much more detail with thinner lines.
Woodcuts: Woodcuts are created by cutting and gouging grooved into a piece of wood. Escher used both side grain, the grain of wood running from left to right and end grain, the grain coming straight out of the wood. Her preferred using side grained wood because this allowed him to create much larger printer at a lower expense. Escher preferred using wood from the pear tree.
Lithographs: An image is created with a greasy substance on a flat piece of aluminum, limestone, or a zinc slab. When ink is applied, it sticks between the small lines and grooves in the greasy substance. Paper is then pressed onto the slab and the ink that was in the lines and grooves is transferred onto the paper. When creating lithographs, Escher preferred to use Japanese rice paper.
Special Note: If you click on the images in the gallery, you will be shown a larger, more detailed copy of that image. However, BE WARNED!!! Because these images are bigger and contain more detail, their file size is much larger. If you are on a slow Internet connection, you may have to wait a long while before the image is fully downloaded.
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