Castrovalva (M. C. Escher)

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Castrovalva

M. C. Escher, 1930

Lithograph, 53 × 42.1 cm

Castrovalva is a lithograph print by the Dutch artist M. C. Escher which was first printed in February, 1930. Like many of Escher's early works, it depicts a place that he visited on a tour of Italy.

It depicts the Abruzzi village of Castrovalva, which lies at the top of a sheer slope. The perspective is toward the northwest, from the narrow trail on the left which, at the point from which this view is seen, makes a hairpin turn to the right, descending to the valley. In the foreground, at the side of the trail, there are several flowering plants, grasses, ferns, a beetle and a snail. In the expansive valley below there are cultivated fields and two more towns, the nearest of which is Anversa degli Abruzzi, with Casale in the distance.

In 1982 the name "Castrovalva" was used in a story in the BBC television series Doctor Who. The storyline also relied heavily on recursion, a favorite theme in Escher's later and more famous works, and used ideas taken from Belvedere and Ascending and Descending to trap the protagonists in the city of Castrovalva.