The Religious Art of M.C. Escher

THE JEWISH DAILY FORWARD
By Menachem Wecker
"Paradise" (1920)
NETHERLANDS --- Dutch artist M. C. Escher (1898-1972) is known for his impossible landscapes, like waterfalls and staircases that operate in continuous loops, and his fantastically interlocking “tessellations,” like these dovetailing blue and white birds. That biblical repertoire includes two woodcuts on the “Fall of Man,” one in 1920 and another in 1927; a “Paradise” (1920); a “St. Francis” (1922); the First (1925) and Sixth (1926) Days of Creation; and the “Tower of Babel” (1928). Escher also created an apparently-Buddha-inspired work and seems to have been fascinated by churches, as evidenced by woodcuts such as the “Procession in Crypt” (1927) and “The Drowned Cathedral” (1929), as well as the 1931 lithograph “Cloister near Rocca Imperiale, Calabria." [link]