Bill and Jen's Adventures: M.C. Escher, Original Hipster

The Escher museum is also in The Hague, and we all spent quite a while looking though the museum devoted to his art.

M.C. Escher

As you can see from his self portrait, Maurits Cornelis Escher, embodied the look all of today's hipsters dream of attaining. He was not a scholar, having to repeat a grade - twice - and still not receiving a diploma upon leaving school. The only subject he excelled at was art. With his arty leanings, his father sent him off to college to learn architecture, but after only a few days his teachers encouraged his father to let the 19-year old M.C. switch to decorative arts. Even still, M.C. didn't excel, but he did graduate. His favorite form of artwork being the woodcuts, a form of art he would use in many of his more famous pieces.

Green or yellow lizzard?

Red or white pegasus?

The two photos above are pencil and ink pieces tackling the theme of deception.

Three Spheres II

Still Life with Reflecting Globe

He also liked to play with interpretations of different worlds, as seen in the reflection in the sphere (two above) and his own reflection in the empty ink bottle (just above). I especially liked the pieces where he only used black, white, and shades of grey, very impressive!

Depth, wood engraving

He liked to create art that represented the relationship between space and a flat surface, as he did in his work 'Depth',

Day and Night

and on the topic of metamorphosis, as in his work 'Day and Night'.

St. Peter's, Rome

For the wood engraving above, he chose a peculiar angle in which to showcase St. Peter's Basilica in Rome. If you look closely you can see the visitors and their shadows on the ground far below.

Belvedere

Escher also created a lot of implausible places in his artwork, like the work above, 'Belvedere,' and really the only piece I knew of his before going to the museum, 'Relativity.' It seemed like the poster for this piece was in every other dorm room at San Diego State!

Relativity

I knew a lot of the other art I saw in the Escher museum, I just hadn't realized they were all works by Escher until our recent trip. Such as the trippy artwork 'Drawing Hands' and 'Bonds of Union.' So cool, and heavy, man… heavy.

Drawing Hands

Bond of Union

The other thing I wanted to mention was the building the Escher museum was housed in was a former palace! Used as a winter residence by Queen Mother Emma (King Willem-Alexander's great, great grandmother) from 1901 - 1934. It was then used by four generations of Queens, the afore mentioned Emma, Wilhelmina, Juliana, and Beatrix, as their working palace until 1984. Some of Queen Emma's furniture can be viewed throughout the museum.

The museum, however, has been funk-i-fied for the masses. My favorite bit in each room was the enormous, strange chandeliers. I took pictures of all the chandeliers, but have only included the best. Enjoy!