Inside one of Florence’s premier museums, the Hospital of the Innocents, is a temporary exhibition of the Dutch artist, graphic designer and engraver Maurits Cornelis Escher. He is noted for his mathematically inspired woodcuts, lithographs and mezzotints that played with perceptions and graphic illusions.
As the first orphanage in Europe, the Hospital of the Innocents tells the story of the many boys and girls who lived there. The classical loggia of its façade—a Renaissance design by Brunelleschi—reminds us of many of the Dutch master’s engravings that play with optical illusions and visual perceptions.
I had already attended his exhibit at the Chiostro del Bramante in Rome in 2015. I couldn’t lose this opportunity. With Viola in the pouch, we ventured into Escher’s images and drawings, into landscapes against nature, into reality deformed by the impossible perspective.
Through the installations of the exhibition, we have experienced a distorted view of Escher’s reality, which we find in his original drawings, the result of a fantastic creativity. The artist creates imaginary places with beautiful architecture and animals that disappear and reappear in a dazzling array of colors and shades. This makes the artist’s work appear to be both beautiful art and sophisticated geometry. When you look in the mirror in a virtual space, you feel like you are part of the painting. This makes Viola smile.
