Day and Night

Day and Night is a woodcut produced by the Dutch artist M. C. Escher (1898–1972), created in 1938.^[1] Printed from two blocks, it became one of Escher’s most popular prints; he himself produced more than 600 during his lifetime.^[1][2] A blue variant of the print sold for $94,062.50 in Los Angeles in 2022.^[3]

The picture shows white and black birds flying over a Dutch landscape. The white birds are flying to the right, through the night, from where the black birds emerge, flying to the left into the day. At the point where the birds meet, they gradually transform in a tessellation into the fields that make up the landscape.^[2]