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| Reptiles, 1943 Lithograph National Gallery of Art, Washington Cornelius Van S. Roosevelt Collection, 1974 © Cordon Art - Baarn - the Netherlands. All rights reserved. One of Escher's fascinations was the animation of an abstract concept. Here, the reptiles come to life as they crawl out of the artist's drawing, only to return to it. Escher wrote of this print: "Evidently one of the reptiles has tired of lying flat and rigid amongst his fellows, so he puts one plastic-looking leg over the edge [and] wrenches himself free." The name "JOB" on the booklet at lower left does not mean the biblical character but instead refers to a brand of Belgian cigarette papers. Penrose in a 1958 article on visual illusion: "Here is a perspective drawing, each part of which is accepted as representing a three-dimensional, rectangular structure. The lines of the drawing are, however, connected in such a manner as to reproduce an impossibility. As the eye pursues the lines of the figure, sudden changes in the interpretation of distance of the object from the observer are necessary." |
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