High and Low (Up and Down)

Here are some excerpts, in part paraphrased, from Bruno Ernst’s very detailed analysis of this image in The Magic Mirror of M.C. Escher: “Escher did not use sets of curved lines on their own in any print but proceeded to combine them with the relativity of vanishing points in the lithograph High and Low. . . . Together with Print Gallery it is perhaps the best print in the whole of Escher’s work.  Not only is its meaning put over with very great skill, but the print itself is a remarkably handsome one. . .  In the middle of the print as we look from below we can see a tiled ceiling:  this is immediately above us and its central point is our zenith.  All rising lines curve inward toward this point.  But if we look at it from above, we get a view of precisely the same scene again but what was the ceiling is now the floor. . . . Anyone who thinks he is standing squarely and fairly on the floor has only to take one step over the diagonal to find himself suddenly hanging down from the ceiling. . . .  All vertical lines are curved. . . . All of these “vertical curves” can be seen to radiate from the center of the print.”
 
Escher had a copy in which he trimmed off the margins and then wrapped the print around a cylinder.  The tiling at the bottom aligns perfectly with the tiling at the ceiling of the print so that it can infinitely transition from worm’s-eye-view to bird’s-eye-view.
 
This perspective-bending masterwork is available.  Please inquire.