House of Stairs

House of Stairs
house-of-stairs
Artist M.C. Escher
Year 1951
Medium lithograph
Dimensions 18 5⁄8 in × 9 3⁄8 in
47.2 cm × 23.8 cm
M.C. Escher Famous Paintings
The Waterfall, 1961
Relativity, 1953
Ascending and Descending, 1960
Drawing Hands, 1948
Sky and Water I, 1938
Three Worlds, 1955
House of Stairs, 1951
Belvedere, 1958
Another World, 1947
Complete Works

House of Stairs is another lithograph print by M.C. Escher, a Dutch artist that came up with really interesting works of art that inspire one to look into the details and think beyond what the eye can see. House of Stairs was first printed in the year 1951 and it is black and white.

In it one can see the interior of a very tall structure full of stairs and doorways. There are 46 creatures crawling up and down the stairs. These lizard-like creatures were created by Escher and they are referred to as “wentelteefje.”

Theme

The theme of this print is, once again, the defying of logic, as there are so many impossibilities in it if one looks closely and thinks shrewdly.

Techniques

Escher makes use of geometry in most of his prints, and in this case he uses several rectangles to make the stairs and walls.