Eye, 1946 Mezzotint and drypoint National Gallery of Art, Washington Rosenwald Collection, 1964 © Cordon Art - Baarn - the Netherlands. All rights reserved. Looking into a concave shaving mirror, Escher drew his own eye, in which the pupil reflects a skull. He must have been familiar with a type of Dutch 17th-century painting, the vanitas still life, which referred to the vanity of worldly pursuits and the transitory nature of human life. This type of painting almost always included a skull, the ultimate reminder of mortality.