Day and Night

1938

M.C. Escher

Artist, Dutch, 1898 - 1972

We look down onto a checkerboard countryside in this horizontal woodcut print. The landscape is bright daylight to our left and transitions to nighttime to our right. As it does so, the checkerboard of the fields morphs into geese flying across the sky, close to us. On the left half, black birds fly westward against a white sky. On the right half, white birds fly eastward against a black sky. The landscape below is mirrored so each has a town on the banks of an inward-curving river. The artist signed the print in the upper right corner with conjoined, blocky letters “MCE” with “II-38” below.
This object’s media is not available for download. Contact us about image usage.
Not on view See artworks now on view

Artwork overview

  • Medium

    woodcut in black and gray, printed from two blocks

  • Credit Line

    Cornelius Van S. Roosevelt Collection

  • Dimensions

    image: 39.2 x 67.6 cm (15 7/16 x 26 5/8 in.)
    sheet: 49.5 x 77.3 cm (19 1/2 x 30 7/16 in.)

  • Accession

    1974.28.8

  • Catalogue Raisonné

    Bool 1981, no. 303

  • Copyright

    All M.C. Escher works © Cordon Art-Baarn-the Netherlands. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Artwork history & notes

Exhibition History

1987

  • Graphic Survey Show, National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C., November 1987.

1995

  • M.C. Escher: Landscape to Mindscape, National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa, 1995-1996. p.18, no.17.

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.

1987

  • Schattschneider 1987, p.26.

Wikidata ID

Q65574209

You may be interested in

Loading Results