If walls could talk #3
Rippled Surface, 1950, woodcut and linoleum cut, The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston.
I visited the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston last weekend to check out Virtual Realities: The Art of M.C. Escher from the Michael S. Sachs Collection, the most comprehensive exhibition of Escher’s work to date. I was curious to see how the museum would present his iconic images (about which most arbiters of taste in the art world have tended to be ambivalent).
Escher (1898-1972) is often cast as a “one-man art movement” because he preferred to work solo rather than to collaborate with like-minded artists. But his fierce passion for new perspectives on time and space aligns his work with major art movements of the 20th century, especially Surrealism, De Stijl, Dada, and conceptual art. Despite enthusiastic acclaim by the public, Escher did not have his first retrospective until late in his life.
One reason for this mixed response may be Escher’s integration of mathematical patterns into his self-described “mind-bending images,” which were often categorized as overly intellectual. He was also primarily a printmaker, not a painter—a discipline that used to be relegated to a much lower echelon in the pantheon of western art.
Like always, I tried to guess the signature color palette for the show before going inside. What would the walls have to say? My hunch was that they would favor dark colors, referencing the stark contrasts of black and white in many of Escher’s prints. His status as an art world outsider also increases the likelihood of this choice. As I touched on in the first post in the series, a white or off-white palette is often used to signal the legitimacy of artists as modern or contemporary masters. Exhibition color palettes for outsiders (including women and artists of color), on the other hand, are more likely to involve darker colors and brighter, more saturated hues.
My hunch was right. At the entrance, visitors were greeted by the only off-white wall in the show. It served as a backdrop for the black text in the title and a large-scale self-portrait of the artist. From here, the initial cluster of galleries was painted in a warm tone of cappuccino brown. This grounded, mid-value neutral (not too dark, not too light, not too colorful) provided an excellent backdrop for Escher’s works on paper, displayed with white mattes and black frames. It also created a kind of visual “breathing room” that allowed viewers to contemplate the art on its own terms. At the center of these galleries, a wall-sized digital reproduction drew viewers into the juicy details of an imaginative, Surrealist cityscape.
Wandering through the collection of more than 400 objects (prints, drawings, wood and linoleum blocks, lithographic stones, and the artist’s working tools), I counted five other wall colors: lipstick red, two dark blues (one saturated, the other subdued), charcoal, and black.
I toured the red galleries next. This seductive hue may have been curated into the palette as visual eye candy. No doubt its intensity has the power to shock the senses. But it also strains the brain—stealing attention away from the art. To me, the decision to coat so many walls with this color also contradicts Escher’s more introspective nature and overwhelms his quiet, penetrating aesthetic. A little red goes a long way!
The charcoal, black, and dark blue walls interacted with the images in a different way. These somber colors did help to convey the mystery of Escher’s imaginative graphic journeys. But their darkness also competed with the artwork due to the extreme value contrast with the white mattes surrounding the prints. An interesting fact about color interaction is that, like it or not, our attention is immediately drawn to strong contrasts of dark and light. The bulk of this visual turbulence usually takes place below our conscious radar. But that doesn’t mean it’s not affecting us. And with so much art and so many walls, the constant interference can be exhausting.
On my drive back to Austin, I couldn’t stop marveling at Escher’s contemplative temperament. Rather than the googly-eyed intensity of Escher as the sensationalist trickster that I was expecting to find (take another look at that portrait!), I was moved by his loving attention to the details of nature, his quiet fascination with the underlying geometric patterns connecting each thing to everything else, from the rippled currents in the water to the trees and the moon reflected in it. And this got me thinking about how color might have been used differently in the show.
The exhibits were mostly organized sequentially, but the flow of Escher’s work from one phase to the next was hard to track as viewers made their way through the disorienting labyrinth of galleries. Together with the rapid switching back and forth between unrelated colors on the walls, the visual noise of all the contrasting darks and lights, and the sheer volume of art on display, the experience could be both confusing and exhausting.
Changing the color palette, and perhaps even introducing more of a theme, could not only provide greater cohesion, but offer a bit more space to focus—meditate even—on the concentrated subtlety of Escher’s eye. I love thinking about colors as notes in a chord. Each color asserts its own distinctive voice, and they all harmonize together into a unified expression. Just like a chord, a signature palette usually features two or more colors.
To share my process for building an overall color story, I sketched out a new color palette for this show based on three phases of Escher’s artistic life:
Path.
Sand.
Moss.
Forest Green.
Brick Red.
Noir.
Taking inspiration from the cappuccino-colored galleries at the museum, I anchored my palette with a selection of chromatic neutrals. Chromatic neutrals can hail from any chromatic hue family (red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple, or magenta). But there’s a caveat: these elegant, nuanced colors also contain healthy doses of achromatic color (black, white, or gray) that tone down the intensity of the saturated hues. Whether light, middle, or dark, chromatic neutrals are ideal for exhibition walls (and your walls at home!) because unlike their eye-catching relatives, they don’t steal the scene. Rather, they are well-suited to the role of best supporting actor to the artworks they showcase.
For the walls of the galleries housing Escher’s early career, I chose Path and Sand. These muted, naturalistic browns hint at his close relationship with the ground. As Escher traveled from his home in the Netherlands to Rome, Sicily, Switzerland, and Spain, he encountered unfamiliar creatures, landscapes, and architectures that planted the seeds of his verdant imagination and masterful technical skills.
Next, the mid-career section features Moss and Forest Green. Since lightness is often correlated with youth, I figured it made sense to lower the light level a few notches as the artist matured. Here, these two green-infused chromatic neutrals continue Escher’s emphasis on the patterned precision of nature. For this suite of galleries, I also morphed the lipstick red from the MFAH show into the less obtrusive Brick Red by dialing back its saturation with a dose of achromatic darkness. This handsome complementary color, which adds notes of urban life and creates visual contrast with the organic greens, would activate one or two small galleries and an accent wall.
For the third and final phase of the exhibition, I cast Noir, a dusky charcoal, into the palette to round out the color story. This dark, achromatic shade echoes Escher’s growing absorption with depth, symmetry, and abstraction. His best known works date from World War II and beyond, when he began to retreat into his studio and shifted away from direct observation into analytical explorations of space and multiple points of view. Of course, color isn’t the only lever a curator can pull here. My choice of Noir would cause less of the distracting value contrast with the white mattes that I complained about before. But reducing the overall volume of prints on display, as well as introducing more variety to the groupings, would also help establish sufficient breathing room.
Now I just need to find an architect to collaborate with to make a 3D model of my version of the Escher exhibition!
Virtual Realities is on view at MFAH through September 5.