M.C. Escher: The Years of Change (1935–1941)

In 1935, Maurits Cornelis Escher made one of the most difficult decisions of his life. He left his beloved Rome, the city where he had lived and worked for eleven years. The reason was the rise of fascism under Mussolini, in which he did not want his children to grow up. The period that followed, in Switzerland and Belgium, was a time of great inner change for Escher. He exchanged drawing landscapes for drawing thoughts.

The “cold” years in Switzerland (1935–1937)

The Escher family — Maurits, his wife Jetta, and their two sons George and Arthur — moved to Château-d’Œx in the Swiss Alps in the summer of 1935. Although the landscape was beautiful, Maurits was utterly miserable there.

The longing for Italy

Escher loved the chaos, the history, and the warm colors of Italy. He found the Swiss mountains rather boring. He called the snow “too white” and the mountains “walls that blocked the view.” In Italy, he drew outdoors, but in Switzerland, he stayed inside. Because he found no inspiration outside, he was forced to look inside his own mind.

The first ‘impossible’ experiments

Precisely because he was bored, he began to play with geometry. He started thinking about how to confuse the viewer. A famous work from this period is Still Life with Mirror (1934/1935), in which the reflection on the table does not seem to quite match reality. The first steps towards his famous style were taken here, in the cold mountains.

The journey to Spain: The Second Spark (1936)

To escape the gloom of Switzerland, Maurits made a major journey by cargo ship along the Spanish coast in 1936 together with Jetta. This journey was crucial. He visited the Alhambra in Granada for the second time. During his first visit in 1922, he was already impressed by the Moorish mosaics, but this time he was obsessed. Together with Jetta, he spent days meticulously tracing the complex patterns on the walls. He discovered the system behind the patterns: how shapes can be repeated without gaps appearing. We call this tessellation.

When he returned to Switzerland, he knew what he had to do. He no longer wanted to create landscapes; he wanted to create patterns that flowed into one another. He began sketching his first “metamorphoses.”

Moving to Belgium: Uccle (1937–1941)

In 1937, the family decided that Switzerland was not the place for them. They moved to Uccle, a leafy suburb of Brussels in Belgium. This was a practical choice: it was closer to their family in the Netherlands and the language was easier for the children. There were also old friends from their time in Rome: Otto de Kat and J.A.N. Patijn.

In Uccle, Escher experienced a massive creative explosion. He now had a spacious studio and was fully focused on his new discoveries. During these years in Belgium, he created a number of his most iconic early works:

* Air and Water I (1938): In this work, birds flying in the air slowly transform into fish swimming in the water. It is a perfect example of what he had learned at the Alhambra, but applied to living figures.

* Day and Night (1938): A landscape with white and black birds flying in opposite directions over a Dutch polder landscape.

* Metamorphosis II (1939-1940): A gigantic work nearly four meters long in which forms continuously transform into one another: from a chessboard to lizards, to bees, to fish, and back again.

The Second World War and the unrest

While Escher was working, the Second World War broke out in 1939. The fear of fascism that Escher had felt in Italy was now back in his own backyard.

Life in Uccle became difficult. There was little food and the German occupiers were present everywhere. Moreover, his father, George Arnold Escher, died in 1939. This was a heavy blow for Maurits, as his father had always been his greatest support, both mentally and financially.

Escher no longer felt comfortable in Belgium, and it was decided to return to the Netherlands. Escher was also a Dutch citizen, which made finances easier. Furthermore, his good friends Otto de Kat and his wife had already left for the Netherlands as well.

A few weeks after the German invasion, Mrs. Escher passed away. Around that time, postal and train traffic between the Netherlands and Brussels was impossible, so the news reached him late. He hitchhiked to the Netherlands but arrived too late for the funeral.

Back to the Netherlands (1941)

In February 1941, the family left Belgium and moved to Baarn in the Netherlands. This marked the end of his “years abroad.” Escher would live in Baarn for the rest of his life.

More coming soon as we are writing more texts…

Sources :
* Locher, J.L. (1981). M.C. Escher: Leven en werk. Meulenhoff, Amsterdam.
* Schattschneider, Doris. (1990). Visions of Symmetry. W.H. Freeman & Co.
* Ernst, Bruno. (1976). De toverspiegel van M.C. Escher.
* Website Escher in Het Paleis.
* Escher, M.C. (1982). His Life and Complete Graphic Work.