After his studies , Escher spent a great deal of time traveling, particularly in Italy, and he eventually settled in Rome, where he lived from 1923 to 1935. He very often explored ares of Italy on foot, making long journeys in inaccessible parts of the countryside making drawings. With the rise of fascism, however, Escher moved in 1935 to Chateau d'Oex in Switzerland, often making his study trips in Spain, studying the copies of Moorish mosaics in the Alhambra and at the La Meezquita mosque in Cordoba.
Most of Escher's work before 1937 is dominated by prints of the Italian landscape and studies of the architecture of Italian cities. But even in these works, he was experimenting with the beginnings of the unique spatial concepts that would become Escher's hallmark. "Castle in the Air," for example, shows Escher using very real imagery in a very fantastic way, as does "Dream," a print depicting a praying mantis atop the statue of a bishop. Also from this period is "Eight Heads," a series of interlocking figures of heads sharing the same contours and repeating to infinity, an aspect of Escher's art that would explore throughout his life.
Escher settled in the Netherlands in 1941, where he lost much of his interest in architecture and nature, and more focused on the images of his imagination, and as early as 1937, his work reflects a shift in themes. "Metamorphosis I," for example, used one of his small Italian city shapes as a starting point to shift and blend into the contours of the figure of an Asian man. He also made famous explorations of the forms of birds, fish and reptiles morphing into each other in works like "Reptiles" and "Cycle" and "Day and Night."
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