MC Escher is best known for his mind-bending fictional interiors. But the natural world also inspired the Dutch artist. The idea for “Puddle” (1952), a woodcut showing trees and a full Moon mirrored in a shallow indent of water, came to him while roaming the woods near his home in Baarn, in the Netherlands.
An exhibition at the Bruce Silverstein Gallery in New York pairs a selection of Escher’s prints with images by the Hungarian-born photographer André Kertész. Though their media differs, both artists used a modernist approach to challenge formal conventions. Escher’s intricate engravings, lithographs and mezzotints take the form of visual puzzles, while Kertész’s whimsical photographs appear as abstracted city views and distorted nudes and still lifes. A Kertész “Puddle” (1967) captures a reflection of the Empire State Building.
Escher noted the French poet Antoine de Saint-Exupéry’s observation that “une mare en relation avec la lune révèle des parentés cachées” — a puddle set in relation to the Moon reveals hidden connections — and he was clearly fascinated by the symbolism of the image.
