The beauty of this Escher work lies in the inner complexity hidden beneath its apparent simplicity. Escher began in 1939 with the this two-dimensional periodic drawing, where the singular shape of the lizard is perfectly and repeatedly interconnected to fill the entire surface of the plane. The extraordinary element of this drawing is that there exists 3 different points of rotation where the heads meet, where the left feet meet, and where the right knees come together. At any of these points, you could rotate a trace of the design by 120 degrees, and the drawings would again align exactly.

This lithograph depicts the Lizards crawling out of a flat two-dimensional sketchbook (the actual periodic drawing e25!), taking on a brief period of life pinnacling in a triumphant snort, only to return to its original state of two-dimensionality. Escher masterfully links the two and three dimensional worlds, in a manner that gives voice to the uniqueness and complexity of his art.