Other World (Another World)

1947

M.C. Escher

Artist, Dutch, 1898 - 1972

At first glance, this vertical woodblock print shows six arched openings piercing walls, each of which frames a bird or horn with a view onto an outer space environment beyond. The walls and columns are light brown and defined with grids in black or white. The logic indicating upright and upside down is confused, and the views out the openings shift to create disorienting optical effects. Neighboring arches pierce the walls to our left and ahead of us. A horn hangs from the left arch and what appeared to be a bird more closely resembles a bird with a person or a sphinx’s face. The view out these two windows shows a cratered landscape with planets and a comet across the dark sky. Below that, two more arches are cut into the wall that seems to be at the bottom of this space and the lower half of the right-hand wall. But we look up at the bird in front of us and the horn hanging from the right, so the tops of these arches point toward the first pair, which are parallel to us. The view out these windows is onto swirling galaxies, stars, and planets in a black sky. The third pair of arches is on the top of the image, but we look down onto this pair, including the bird’s head and the opening of the horn. The view out these windows is down onto craters that intersect like rings from stones tossed into a still lake. The artist signed the work with his blocky monogram in the lower left corner, as if on the face of that wall there as it zooms away from us: “I-’47 MCE.” The artist also signed the lower left margin, “MC Escher” with graphite and inscribed “eigen druk” under the lower right corner.
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Artwork overview

  • Medium

    wood engraving and woodcut in black, light brown and green, printed from three blocks

  • Credit Line

    Gift of Dr. and Mrs. Julius S. Piver

  • Dimensions

    image: 31.8 x 26 cm (12 1/2 x 10 1/4 in.)
    sheet: 36.2 x 29.6 cm (14 1/4 x 11 5/8 in.)

  • Accession

    1984.31.1

  • Catalogue Raisonné

    Bool 1981, no. 348


Artwork history & notes

Exhibition History

1997

  • M.C. Escher: A Centennial Tribute, National Gallery of Art, Washington; San Diego Museum of Art; The Chrysler Museum of Art, Norfolk, 1997-1999.

2000

  • "M.C. Escher", Knoxville Museum of Art, 2000.

Bibliography

1981

  • Bool, F.H. et al. M.C. Escher: His Life and Complete Graphic Work. Amsterdam: Meulenhoff, 1981; English-language edition, New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1982.

Inscriptions

lower left in plate: I-'47 / MCE; in artist's hand, lower left in graphite: MCEscher; lower right: eigendr[u?]k / wood-engraving.3 blocks, "Another World". 35.

Wikidata ID

Q74046297


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