| Print Gallery | |
|---|---|
| Dutch:Prentententoonstelling | |
 A man viewing a print of a seaport in a gallery, with the gallery itself appearing within the print | |
| Artist | M. C. Escher |
| Year | 1956 (1956) |
| Type | Lithograph |
| Dimensions | 12.625 in × 12.5 in (32.07 cm × 31.75 cm) |
Print Gallery (Dutch:Prentententoonstelling) is alithograph printed in 1956 by theDutch artistM. C. Escher.[1] It depicts a man in a gallery viewing a print of a seaport, and among the buildings in the seaport is the very gallery in which he is standing, making use of theDroste effect with visualrecursion.[2] The lithograph has attracted discussion in both mathematical and artistic contexts. Escher consideredPrint Gallery to be among the best of his works.[3]
Bruno Ernst citesM. C. Escher as stating that he beganPrint Gallery "from the idea that it must be possible to make an annular bulge, a cyclic expansion ... without beginning or end."[4] Escher attempted to do this with straight lines, but intuitively switched to using curved lines which make the grid expand greatly as it rotates.[4][5]
In his bookGödel, Escher, Bach,Douglas Hofstadter explains the seeming paradox embodied inPrint Gallery as astrange loop showing three kinds of "in-ness": the gallery is physically in the town ("inclusion"); the town is artistically in the picture ("depiction"); the picture is mentally in the person ("representation").[6]
Escher's signature is on a circular void in the centre of the work. In 2003, two Dutch mathematicians, Bart de Smit andHendrik Lenstra, reported a way of filling in the void by treating the work as drawn on anelliptic curve over the field ofcomplex numbers. They deem an idealised version ofPrint Gallery tocontain a copy of itself (the Droste effect), rotated clockwise by about 157.63 degrees and shrunk by a factor of about 22.58.[5] Their website further explores the mathematical structure of the picture.[7]
Print Gallery has been discussed in relation topost-modernism by a number of writers, including Silvio Gaggi,[8] Barbara Freedman,[9] Stephen Bretzius,[10] andMarie-Laure Ryan.[11]
The coastal architecture combines elements from Escher's 1935 visit to Malta aboard the S.S. Verdi. Although distorted, the work depictsSenglea, Malta, transforming the harbour town's characteristic stacked buildings and traditional balconies.[12] Escher's earlier realistic workSenglea, Malta (1935) provided the primary architectural foundation for this impossible construction.
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