Public domain
Horned owl
From the collection of Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam. Free to download, adapt and use — no permission needed.
About this work
Without the white dots, the eyes of this horned owl would remain black discs. Jessurun de Mesquita treated the rest of the animal's body very differently. In the schematic and flatly rendered plumage, symmetry reigns. Escher shared this interest, which would recur throughout his entire oeuvre. However, where Jessurun de Mesquita borders his flat representations with a frame, Escher quickly opts for the illusion of spatiality and infinity.
Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam’s own descriptionCredit lineHoornuil. 1915. Samuel Jessurun de Mesquita. Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam. Public domain.
