Herakleidon - The Exhibits

Herakleidon, Experience in Visual Arts
Herakleidon 16, Thissio
118 51 Athens, Greece
(Metro station: Thissio)

T: +30 210 34 61 981
F: +30 210 34 58 225
info@herakleidon-art.gr

Museum Hours
Tue-Sat 13:00-21:00
Sun 11:00-19:00
Monday - closed

Museum Admission
General admission: 6€
Students & persons over 65: 4€
Children up to 12: Free
Groups: Upon appointment

All M.C. Escher works © The M.C. Escher Company B.V. - Baarn - the NETHERLANDS

The Exhibits

Current Exhibits | Upcoming Exhibits | Past Exhibits

Drawing Hands- Lithograph 1948 - 28.5 x 34 cm

"BEYOND INFINITY" - THE ART OF M.C. ESCHER

July 17th 2004 - November 3rd 2005

Daily-Including Weekends: 1:00pm - 9:00pm

Exhibit Photo Gallery

"Herakleidon, Experience in Visual Arts" opened its doors with an exhibition of works by the leading Dutch graphic artist M.C. Escher (1898-1972), a defining presence in 20th century art. The museum's collection consists of more than of 250 of his most important and rare works as well as woodcuts, mezzotints, lithographs, photographs of the artist, sculptures and many of his personal items. The great breadth of the exhibition allowed the visitor to discover the power of an artist whose work has been an inspiration for his peers around the world.

M.C. Escher

Maurits Cornelis Escher was born on June 17, 1898, in Leeuwarden, a city in northern Holland. At an early age, he showed his special talent for drawing, and in high school he was already making linocuts with the assistance of his art teacher. His parents urged him to study architecture and he enrolled at the School for Architecture and Decorative Arts in Haarlem.

It was immediately apparent to Escher that his true loves were drawing and graphic art, and even though his work would always reflect a deep understanding of architecture, from that moment onward he devoted himself to the graphic arts.

Like many artists before him, Escher was drawn to Italy, and after he finished his studies he moved there, living in Rome and traveling widely throughout the country from 1923 to 1935. It was in Italy that he met his wife and where two of his three sons were born. During this time, he concentrated on making realistic landscapes and city scenes that are notable for their remarkable feeling for the structure of volumes in space.

After 1937, Escher's work became more fully grounded in his own imagination, and he began to create the startling illusionist images for which he is so famous. He continually invented new visual constructions to challenge the conventional perception of spatial relationships. He brought to this quest not only his superb draftsmanship and knowledge of geometry and other forms of mathematics, but also humor, fantasy, and his passion for regular divisions of the plane and limitless space. By the 1950s, he had developed a following among scientists, and his work has since become a symbolic bridge between science and art.

Escher died on March 27, 1972, at the age of seventy-three.

(From the book The M.C. Escher Coloring Book, Harry N. Abrams, Inc., Publishers)

Snakes - 1969, woodcut printed from three blocks, 49.8 x 44.7 cm

Snakes - 1969, woodcut printed from three blocks, 49.8 x 44.7 cm

Throughout his life woodcuts and wood
engravings were Escher's favorite forms of expression. The culmination of his career was his last work, "Snakes", a masterpiece in three colors that required nine perfectly aligned impressions in order to achieve the final print.

Eye - 1946, mezzotint, 14.1 x 19.8 cm

Even though his most famous works are lithographs, the copper engraving titled "Eye" is considered by many art critics to be the best example of the artistis expressive techniques.

The exhibition included, among others, the full set of drawings and final prints of the woodcut "Depth" and the lithograph "Flatworms", as well as the original woodblocks and the lithographic stone used for these by M.C. Escher.

Cubic Space Division - (sculpture study)

Cubic Space Division - (sculpture study)

It is worth noting that this stone, weighing 40 kilos, is one of a handful of Bavarian limestones left in his estate, because the artist would scrub, polish, and then reuse them.

On exhibit, was also the three-dimensional cube used by the artist for the creation of his work "Cubic Space Division".

Photo Gallery
click on the image thumbnails for larger view

Drawing Hands
1948, lithograph, 28.2 x 33.2 cm

This is one of Escher?s best-known images. A piece of paper is fixed to a base with drawing pins. A right hand is busy sketching a shirt-cuff upon this drawing paper. At this point the work is incomplete, but a little further to the right, the hand has already drawn a left hand emerging from a sleeve in such detail that it seems to emerge from the flat surface. Note that Escher drew with his left hand and used his right hand as the model.

Belvedere
1958, lithograph, 46.2 x 29.5 cm

Here is another example of Escher exploring the idea of how the two-dimensional plane allows for the construction of buildings that could not possibly exist in the three-dimensional world. The building appears to be a palace, complete with a grimacing prisoner in the dungeon. But notice the small boy in the foreground, he holds the key to this puzzle, a cube with impossible construction. The building Escher has created has two parallel floors that are at right angles to one another, and one can climb a ladder from the inside to the outside of the building! And, in a rare tribute to another artist, the individuals are an homage to the great sixteenth-century Flemish artist Hieronymus Bosch

Reptiles
1943, lithograph, 33.4 x 38.5 cm

Among the finest prints Escher ever produced, Reptiles fascinates us with its clever tessellation drawing from which a lizard springs to life on a circular journey that brings it back to its origins. Every object depicted in this picture belonged to the artist, including his tessellation sketchbook that actually has this drawing in it. These drawings were Escher's 'visual dictionary' in which he systematically recorded every system of interlocking figures. One of these rare watercolors is exhibited to the right of this print.

Snakes
1969, woodcut printed from three blocks, 49.8 x 44.7 cm

For this, his last print, Escher used the technique of woodcutting, which he had favored all his life.

Eye
1946, mezzotint, 14.1 x 19.8 cm

This print truly defines Escher and is recognized as one of the finest mezzotints ever created because of the subtle shading. Escher himself said that when we look deep inside ourselves we are all looking at our own mortality. Perhaps this explains his choice to place the skull centered in the pupil.

Depth - 1955, wood engraving, 32 x 23 cm

Limit Circle Limit IV: Heaven and Hell
1960, woodcut, 41.6 cm (diameter)

In a book by Professor H. S. M. Coxeter, Escher discovered an illustration that would help him with his explorations of the infinite plane. This illustration expressed the idea that the whole of an infinite plane can be shown as being within a finite circle. From this model Escher created his own constructions of infinity in a series of prints entitled Circle Limit, where the forms diminish in size as they move outwards. Escher said that what he achieved was not a literal representation of infinity, 'but certainly a fragment of it.'

Circle Limit I
1958, woodcut, diameter 41.8 cm

The first of a series of four Circle Limits of which the Μuseum has two: 'Circle Limit I' and 'Circle Limit IV'. In the first attempt we understand the principle he tries to convey: to illustrate the limit of infinite smallness. The black and white fish recede towards the outer rim. The limit is not a point, but a circle that borders the whole complex and gives it a logical boundary and creates as it were a universe. At the end of his career he created the ultimate Circle Limit, his last masterpiece: 'Snakes'.

The Bridge

1930, lithograph, 53.6 X 37.7 cm
One of many prints which were intended for a book on the Abruzzi, that never materialized.

Day and Night
1938, woodcut, 39.1 x 67.7 cm

This work is often considered one of Escher?s finest prints. When it was hanging in the studio of his teacher, Jessurun de Mesquita, a visitor complimented the older artist on his most brilliant print! Escher states: 'Grey rectangular fields develop upwards into silhouettes of white and black birds; the black ones are flying towards the left and the white ones are toward the right, in the opposing formations. To the left of the picture the white birds flow together and merge to form a daylight sky and landscape. The day and night landscapes are mirror images of each other, united by means of the grey fields out of which, once again, the birds emerge.'

Relativity
1953, lithograph, 27.7 x 29.2 cm

In Relativity, Escher not only expressed the idea that viewpoints are not fixed, but introduces yet another concept that he would tirelessly explore: what is a ceiling to one group is a wall to another; what is a door for one group is a trapdoor in the floor to another. The entire environment is linked by impossible stairways, a motif associated with Escher's work. We are compelled to follow the paths and although our mind tells us they are impossible, we accept them as plausible. There will be one portion of this image that will make sense visually no matter which way the print is hung, except upside-down.

Waterfall
1961, lithograph, 38 x 30 cm

This print was a response to another impossible figure introduced to Escher, this one by the mathematician Penrose. This figure is called a 'tribar', an open form that when viewed from a certain angle appears to exist as a closed triangle in real space. Here Escher came up with a brilliant scheme, where he linked three tribars by way of endlessly flowing water. Escher noted that the miller must add water occasionally to compensate for evaporation.

Verbum
1942, lithograph, 33.2 x 38.6 cm

This is the only hexagonal print Escher made, and it was one of the few prints the artist had hung in his own studio. Escher explains: 'An evolution working from the center outwards,?offers more space at the edges for the fully grown figures. The central word 'Verbum' (the Greek 'Logos') recalls the biblical story of creation. Out of a misty grey there loom triangular primeval figures which, by the time they reach the edges of the hexagon, have developed into birds, fishes and frogs, each in its own element: air, water and earth. Each kind is pictured by day and by night, and the creatures merge into each other as they move forward along the outline of the hexagon, in a clockwise direction.'

Cycle
1938, lithograph, 47.5 x 27.9 cm

Escher explains: 'At the top right-hand corner a jolly young lad comes popping out of his house. As he rushes downstairs he loses his spacial quality and takes his place in a pattern of flat, grey, white and black fellow-shapes. Towards the left and upwards these become simplified into lozenges. The dimension of depth is achieved by the combination of three diamonds which give the impression of a cube. The cube is joined on to the house from which the boy emerges. The floor of the terrace is laid with the same familiar pattern intended to display the utmost three-dimensional realism, while the periodic pattern at the lower part of the picture shows the greatest possible amount of two-dimensional restriction of freedom.'

Bond of Union
1956, lithograph, 25.3 x 33.9 cm

Escher created this double portrait of himself and his wife, Jetta, in a way that shows both his great tenderness towards his wife and his printmaking virtuosity. One can see inside, outside, and around the heads, while they unwind, but they are linked as one at the forehead.

Cubic Space Division
1952, lithograph, 26.6 x 26.6 cm

While exploring ways to represent three-dimensional space, Escher conceived this view, a seemingly endless mechanical construction accentuated by the connecting cubes. Intersecting each other at right angles, girders divide each other into equal lengths, each forming the edge of a cube. In this way space is filled to infinity with cubes of the same size.

Print Gallery
1956, lithograph, 31.9 x 31.7 cm

What a trick Escher has achieved in this work! In this lithograph we see a depiction of an exhibition of prints. In the bottom left-hand corner a young man views one of the prints, a rendering of a seaside town. If one looks just below the buildings in the right portion of the work, one notices the entrance to the gallery, beyond which is a young man looking at the exhibited prints. Thus, the young man is himself in the print he is looking at! Escher created this illusion by expanding the composition a total of 256 times in a clockwise circular format, beginning at the lower left corner. The same sort of grid was used for his woodcut Fish and Scales. The artist was unable to complete the inner portion of the print, but this has recently been accomplished. We are pleased to show the video of this discovery

Ascending and Descending
1960, lithograph, 35.5 x 28.5 cm

Here Escher seems to be referring to the Dutch expression ?monk?s work,? meaning tedious and endless labors. These men march up and down on their endless staircase, though occasionally one rests on the steps below. The print also represents another illustration of an impossible object that Escher became familiar with through an article written by Penrose: stairs lead up and down but remain at the same level. They are limitless and infinite--concepts important to Escher and depicted throughout his art.

Still Life with Mirror
1934, lithograph, 39.4 x 28.7 cm

This is perhaps the most important print the artist produced during his Italian sojourns because it brings us directly into the unusual world of Escher. In this work two images are revealed to us, an indoor setting and an outside world that is reflected in the mirror. But is it a 'real' world? If we look carefully, normally one should not be able to see the street with the mirror tilted upwards. Escher intentionally breaks the rules of landscape depiction, expecting us to discover the difference between reality and illusion. Moreover, the artist understands our mind's ability to accept impossible worlds, and subtly manipulates them under his pencil.

Inside St Peter's
1935, wood engraving, 23.7 Χ 31.6 cm

This print presents a very unusual perspective to the viewer. Escher remarks: 'The convergence of the vertical lines towards the nadir suggests the height of the building in which the viewer finds himself, together with the feeling of vertigo that takes hold of him when he looks down.' Another remarkable feature of this print is the level of detail achieved in a wood engraving.

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