''Tower of Babel'' is a 1928
woodcut
Woodcut is a relief printing technique in printmaking. An artist carves an image into the surface of a block of wood—typically with gouges—leaving the printing parts level with the surface while removing the non-printing parts. Areas that ...
by
M. C. Escher
Maurits Cornelis Escher (; 17 June 1898 – 27 March 1972) was a Dutch graphic artist who made mathematically inspired woodcuts, lithographs, and mezzotints.
Despite wide popular interest, Escher was for most of his life neglected in t ...
. It depicts the
Tower of Babel
The Tower of Babel ( he, , ''Mīgdal Bāḇel'') narrative in Genesis 11:1–9 is an origin myth meant to explain why the world's peoples speak different languages.
According to the story, a united human race speaking a single language and mi ...
, a biblical story about people attempting to build a tower to reach God, which is found in
Genesis
Genesis may refer to:
Bible
* Book of Genesis, the first book of the biblical scriptures of both Judaism and Christianity, describing the creation of the Earth and of mankind
* Genesis creation narrative, the first several chapters of the Book of ...
11:9. Although Escher dismissed his works before 1935 as of little or no value as they were "for the most part merely practice exercises,"
some of them, including the ''Tower of Babel'', chart the development of his interest in perspective and unusual viewpoints that would become the hallmarks of his later, more famous, work.
In contrast to many other depictions of the
biblical story, such as those by
Pieter Brueghel the Elder
Pieter Bruegel (also Brueghel or Breughel) the Elder (, ; ; – 9 September 1569) was the most significant artist of Dutch and Flemish Renaissance painting, a painter and printmaker, known for his landscapes and peasant scenes (so-called genre ...
(''
The Tower of Babel'') and
Gustave Doré (''The Confusion of Tongues''), Escher depicts the tower as a geometrical structure and places the viewpoint above the tower. This allows him to exercise his skill with
perspective, but he also chose to centre the picture around the top of the tower as the focus for the climax of the action. He later commented:
See also
*''
Belvedere Belvedere (from Italian, meaning "beautiful sight") may refer to:
Places
Australia
*Belvedere, Queensland, a locality in the Cassowary Coast Region
Africa
*Belvedere (Casablanca), a neighborhood in Casablanca, Morocco
*Belvedere, Harare, Zim ...
''
*''
Waterfall
A waterfall is a point in a river or stream where water flows over a vertical drop or a series of steep drops. Waterfalls also occur where meltwater drops over the edge of a tabular iceberg or ice shelf.
Waterfalls can be formed in several wa ...
''
References
Notes
*
{{printmaking-stub
Works by M. C. Escher
1928 paintings
Woodcuts
Tower of Babel
Tower of Babel in art