Maurits Cornelis Escher was fresh out of art school when he first visited the Alhambra in 1922. It was his first encounter with the elaborate, repeating patterns in the tiles and architecture of the lavish Granada palace. The visit would leave a lasting impression on the Dutch artist and his work, today defined by mind-bending yet orderly visions where hands draw themselves and birds transform seamlessly into fish.

Even after that fateful trip, Escher would continue to draw the real world (albeit from impossible vantage points) for the next 15 years, as he lived and traveled throughout southern Europe. He visited the Alhambra again in 1936, producing meticulous sketches of Islamic tiling that today appear almost as prototypes for his later tessellated work. Finally, in 1941, Escher brought his family home to the Netherlands and settled in Baarn. Bored by his new surroundings and forced inside by the damp, grey weather, his compositions shifted to reflect his inner world. Ideas from his travels crystallized, and his subjects were increasingly imagined.

The prints Escher produced from 1941 on are his most well-known. He continued experimenting with repeating patterns and geometric mathematical concepts, but he became increasingly interested in expressing three-dimensional subjects: optical illusions, metamorphosis, and impossible worlds. “I feel like telling my objects, you are too fictitious, lying there next to each other static and frozen: do something, come off the paper and show me what you are capable of!” he later said.