“I didn’t know Escher. It was a friend who told me about it. I saw that he had particularly worked on depth of field. It’s really very interesting, I really liked it,” enthuses Michel, who is finishing the exhibition tour. “Metamorphoses is great, when he starts from one subject to arrive at something else. Escher sees things in a different way and it’s fascinating, especially since it’s well explained. We take pleasure in trying to decipher his paintings, with a little pride in being able to understand what he tried to do, even if, over time, the eye tires and gets lost. It’s great to have that in Toulouse,” continues this young retiree.
With already 18,000 visitors since December 20 (and more than 20 million during previous stages elsewhere in the world), the exhibition dedicated to Maurits Cornelis Escher at the EDF Bazacle spaces, in Toulouse (Haute-Garonne), confirms the worldwide craze for the Dutch artist. “His name is not well known, but his work is in the collective imagination,” underlines Iole Siena, president of Arthemisia, the Italian group which produced this exhibition. She is delighted with this coming to Toulouse, “the first exhibition on this unique artist in France”, she adds.
MC Escher is unique in many ways, since his work, nourished by numerous influences, challenges, questions, astonishes and immerses visitors in paradoxical or even impossible worlds. Federico Giudiceandrea, one of the greatest experts on the artist, explains how this Dutchman born in 1898 and graduated from the school of architecture and decorative arts in Haarlem (Netherlands) came to be. “Quickly, he integrated strange perspectives into his art, with a desire to emancipate himself from norms, while being close to art nouveau,” explains this passionate Italian collector. Amazed by the Mediterranean landscapes during the Grand Tour he undertook at the end of his studies, Escher settled in Italy between 1923 and 1936, fleeing the rise of fascism.
“He is fascinated by this assembly of forms”
He was later marked by his discovery of the Alhambra, in Granada (Spain), and the ornamental motifs of Moorish art. “He is fascinated by this assembly of forms and, thanks to his brother, learns to master the different techniques of tiling the plane (tesselation) into which he integrates human or animal forms,” develops Federico Giudiceandrea, who then discusses his Metamorphoses, which are among his most famous works: “This brings mathematicians to be interested in this art and these techniques. »
-Over time, his work gained fame and was exported, particularly to the United States, where the hippie movement appropriated it through posters, album covers, etc. “Escher has an atypical career path and offers paradoxical worlds that play with the difference between reality and representation, between reality and perception,” concludes the Italian expert. And it is precisely this evolution and this very particular art, between illusions and false pretenses, that allows us to understand this exhibition, with around a hundred works divided into eight sections, supplemented by interactive spaces and educational supports.
Practical: the MC Escher exhibition is open until March 30, 2025 at the EDF Bazacle space, in Toulouse, every day except Tuesdays.
