| Some of the bats
are gold, some silver, and some the black of the fabric, but Escher
then overlaid the metallic ink of some of the motifs with transparent red,
blue, or green, so that the bats occur in six different colors. It is
quite possible that this motif was inspired by designs Escher
saw in the Alhambra in 1922; motifs with similar outline are common there
in decorative designs having the same symmetry.
For each of these
prints,
Escher carved woodblocks with
a single motif, but in two versions: one to print a colored figure on the
fabric, the other to turn a surrounded patch of fabric-the ground-into
a figure by printing just the interior detail lines. For the lion print,
two pairs of blocks were carved to stamp both the image and the mirror
image of the creature. In the print shown here, the motifs occur in four
different positions, each position identified by a designated color; this
arrangement required the use of only three of the four carved blocks. To
create the prints on fabric, Escher
hand-printed
each motif in an interlocked array of repeated creatures; the lower corner
of each of these prints bears the same imprint from another carved block:
"HANDDRUK
MCE" ("hand-printed MCE").
About ten years later
the first pattern of "lions" would become number 1 of Escher's
periodic drawings, and the second design of lion-like figures would be
reworked and become number 2. In printing the first design on fabric, the
individual "lions" were made to interlock with each other by turning
the block 180'-thus the symmetry present in this design is the same as
that in Escher's woodcut Eight Heads.
Here, however, turning the printed rectangle of fabric does not reveal
any new images; the pattern looks just the same right side up or upside
down.
Although Escher
obviously derived great personal pleasure from creating these hand-printed
designs, it is not surprising that they were "not successful" at the
beginning when exhibited in the West. Of all his prints involving regular
division, these are perhaps the closest to "pure" regular repetition,
like wallpaper. Only the individuality of the motifs at the edges of
the design reveals that these were not printed by a roller.
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