Has’ sumptuously braided, wildly farcical and surprisingly philosophical Rekopis znaleziony w Saragossie ( The Saragossa Manuscript, 1965) raises the same kinds of unanswerable questions and takes its hapless protagonist, Alfonso Van Worden (Zbigniew Cybulski), on a similar, seemingly never-ending journey. Mixing elements of Homeric epic, the quest of the Grail legend (with Spain substituted for the chalice) and Mack Sennett’s Keystone Cops, Wojciech J. Escher’s triumphant trompe l’œil forces us to question what lies before us, even to ask, “Is that what I’m really seeing?” Are the monks escaping? Observing a daily routine? Maybe on an unending journey to nowhere? All the clues are before us, yet we make of it what we want. Inside this odd building might be more tricks, and not just of the eye. The stairs, at the top of the structure, surround a courtyard that Escher doesn’t show us. Archways below suggest the kind of building curious children might want to explore. Escher’s delightfully baffling lithograph from 1960, “Ascending and Descending”, monks simultaneously trudge up and down a square series of stairs at the centre of a building equipped with a spire and odd-looking puffy objects that look like large pillows.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |