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| {{Infobox Artist | |||
| | bgcolour = | |||
| | name = Maurits Cornelis Escher | |||
| | image = EscherSelf1929.jpg | |||
| | imagesize = | |||
| | caption = M.C. Escher (self-portrait) | |||
| | birthdate = {{birth date|1898|6|17|mf=y}} | |||
| | location = ], The ] | |||
| | deathdate = {{death date and age|1972|3|27|1898|6|17|mf=y}} | |||
| | deathplace = ], The Netherlands | |||
| | nationality = {{flagicon|NLD}} ] | |||
| | field = drawing, ] | |||
| | training = | |||
| | movement = | |||
| | famous works = ], ], ] | |||
| | patrons = | |||
| | awards = Knighthood of the ] | |||
| }} | |||
| '''Maurits Cornelis Escher''' (] ] – ] ]), usually referred to as '''M. C. Escher''', was a ] ]. He is known for his often mathematically inspired ]s, ] and ]s. These feature ], explorations of ], ] and ]s. | |||
| == Early life == | |||
| Maurits Cornelis, or "Mauk" as he came to be nicknamed<ref>"We named him Maurits Cornelis after S's beloved uncle Van Hall, and called him 'Mauk' for short ....", Diary of Escher's father, quoted in ''M. C. Escher: His Life and Complete Graphic Work'', Abradale Press, 1981, p. 9.</ref>, was born in ], The ]. He was the youngest son of ] ] and his second wife, Sara Gleichman. He was a sickly child, and was placed in a special school at the age of seven and failed the second grade<ref name="sundial">{{cite book |author=Barbara E, PhD. Bryden |title=Sundial: Theoretical Relationships Between Psychological Type, Talent, And Disease |publisher=Center for Applications of Psychological Type |location=Gainesville, Fla |year= |pages= |isbn=0-935652-46-9 |oclc= |doi=}}</ref>. In 1903, the family moved to ] where he took ] and piano lessons until he was thirteen years old. | |||
| From 1903 until 1918 he attended ] and ]. Though he excelled at drawing, his grades were generally poor. In 1919, Escher attended the ''] School of Architecture and Decorative Arts''. He briefly studied ], but failed a number of subjects (partly due to a persistent skin infection) and switched to ]<ref name="sundial"/>. Here he studied under ], with whom he would remain friends for years. In 1922 Escher left the school, having gained experience in drawing and making ]. | |||
| == Later life == | |||
| <!-- Unsourced image removed: ] --> | |||
| In 1922, an important year in his life, Escher traveled through ] (Florence, San Gimignano, Volterra, Siena) and ] (Madrid, Toledo, Granada). He was impressed by the Italian countryside and by the ], a fourteenth-century Moorish castle in Granada, Spain. He came back to Italy regularly in the following years. In Italy he met Jetta Umiker, whom he married in 1924. The young couple settled down in ] and stayed there until 1935, when the political climate under ] became unbearable. Their son, Giorgio Arnaldo Escher, named after his grandfather, was born in Rome. The family next moved to ], ] where they remained for two years. | |||
| Escher, who had been very fond of and inspired by the landscapes in ], was decidedly unhappy in ], so in 1937, the family moved again, to ], a small town near ], ]. ] forced them to move in January 1941, this time to ], the ], where Escher lived until 1970. Most of Escher's better-known pictures date from this period. The sometimes cloudy, cold, wet weather of the ] allowed him to focus intently on his works, and only during 1962, when he underwent surgery, was there a time when no new images were created. | |||
| On ] ], Escher was awarded a Knighthood of the ]. | |||
| Escher moved to the ] house in ] in 1970, a retirement home for artists where he had his own studio. He died at the home on ] ], at 73 years of age. | |||
| == Works == | |||
| ]'', 1948.]] | |||
| Escher's first print of an impossible reality was '']'', 1937. His artistic expression was created from images in his mind, rather than directly from observations and travels to other countries. Well known examples of his work also include '']'', a work in which two hands are shown, each drawing the other; '']'', in which light plays on shadow to ] fish in water into birds in the sky; '']'', in which lines of people ascend and descend stairs in an infinite loop, on a construction which is impossible to build and possible to draw only by taking advantage of ] and ]. | |||
| He worked primarily in the media of ] and ], though the few ]s he made are considered to be masterpieces of the technique. In his graphic art, he portrayed mathematical relationships among shapes, figures and space. Additionally, he explored interlocking figures using black and white to enhance different dimensions. Integrated into his prints were mirror images of cones, spheres, cubes, rings and spirals. | |||
| In addition to sketching landscape and nature in his early years, he also sketched insects, which frequently appeared in his later work. His first artistic work was completed in 1922, which featured eight human heads divided in different planes. Later around 1924, he lost interest in "regular division" of planes, and turned to sketching landscapes in ] with irregular perspectives that are impossible in natural form. | |||
| ]'', 1953.]] | |||
| Although Escher did not have a mathematical training—his understanding of mathematics was largely visual and intuitive—Escher's work has a strong mathematical component, and more than a few of the worlds which he drew are built around ] such as the ] and the ]. Many of Escher's works employed repeated tilings called ]s. Escher's artwork is especially well-liked by ]s and ]s, who enjoy his use of ] and ] distortions. For example, in '']'', multi-colored turtles poke their heads out of a ] ]. | |||
| The mathematical influence in his work emerged around 1936, when he was journeying the ] with the Adria Shipping Company. Specifically, he became interested in order and symmetry. Escher described his journey through the Mediterranean as "the richest source of inspiration I have ever tapped." | |||
| After his journey to the ], Escher tried to improve upon the art works of the ] using geometric grids as the basis for his sketches, which he then overlaid with additional designs, mainly animals such as birds and lions. | |||
| His first study of mathematics, which would later lead to its incorporation into his art works, began with ]’s academic paper on plane ]s sent to him by his brother ]. This paper inspired him to learn the concept of the 17 ]s (plane symmetry groups). Utilizing this mathematical concept, Escher created periodic tilings with 43 colored drawings of different types of symmetry. From this point on he developed a mathematical approach to expressions of symmetry in his art works. Starting in 1937, he created ] using the concept of the 17 plane symmetry groups. | |||
| In 1941, Escher wrote his first paper, now publicly recognized, called ''Regular Division of the Plane with Asymmetric Congruent Polygons'', which detailed his mathematical approach to artwork creation. His intention in writing this was to aid himself in integrating mathematics into art. Escher is considered a research mathematician of his time because of his documentation with this paper. In it, he studied color based division, and developed a system of categorizing combinations of shape, color and symmetrical properties. By studying these areas, he explored an area that later mathematicians labeled ]. | |||
| Around 1956, Escher explored the concept of representing infinity on a two-dimensional plane. Discussions with ] mathematician ] inspired Escher’s interest in hyperbolic tessellations, which are regular tilings of the ]. Escher’s works ''Circle Limit I–IV'' demonstrate this concept. In 1995, Coxeter verified that Escher had achieved mathematical perfection in his etchings in a published paper. Coxeter wrote, "Escher got it absolutely right to the millimeter." | |||
| His works brought him fame: he was awarded the Knighthood of the ] in 1955. Subsequently he regularly designed art for dignitaries around the world. | |||
| In 1958, he published a paper called '']'', in which he described the systematic buildup of mathematical designs in his artworks. He emphasized, "] have opened the gate leading to an extensive domain." | |||
| Overall, his early love of ] and Italian landscapes and of nature led to his interest in regular division of a plane. He worked in the media of woodcuts, lithographs and ]s. In his lifetime he created over 150 colored works utilizing the concept of regular division of a plane. Other mathematical principles evidenced in his works include the superposition of a hyperbolic plane on a fixed 2-dimensional plane, and the incorporation of three-dimensional objects such as spheres, columns and cubes into his works. For example, in a print called "Reptiles," he combined two and three-dimensional images. In one of his papers, Escher emphasized the importance of dimensionality and described himself as "irritated" by flat shapes: "I make them come out of the plane." | |||
| ]'', 1961.]] | |||
| Escher also studied the mathematical concepts of ]. He learned additional concepts in mathematics from British mathematician ]. From this knowledge he created ''Waterfall'' and ''Up and Down'', featuring irregular perspectives similar to the concept of the ]. | |||
| Escher printed '']'' in 1937, which was a beginning part of a series of designs that told a story through the use of pictures. These works demonstrated a culmination of Escher’s skills to incorporate mathematics into art. In ''Metamorphosis I'', he transformed ]s into regular patterns in a plane to form a human motif. This effect symbolizes his change of interest from landscape and nature to regular division of a plane. | |||
| One of his most notable works is the piece '']'', which is wide enough to cover all the walls in a room, and then loop back onto itself. | |||
| After 1953, Escher became a lecturer to many organizations. A planned series of lectures in North America in 1962 was cancelled due to illness, but the illustrations and text for the lectures, written out in full by Escher, was later published as part of the book ''Escher on Escher''. In July of 1969, he finished his last work before his death, a woodcut called '']''. It features etchings of patterns that fade to infinity both to the center and the edge of a circle. Snakes transverse the circle and the patterns in it, with their heads sticking out of the circle. | |||
| Many well known museums include original works by Escher in their collections. Some leading public collections include the following: ] in Washington, D.C., The ] in Ottawa, The Israel Museum in Jerusalem, The ] at The Hague, The Netherlands, and the ]. Escher's work appears in many of the finest private collections including the Schwartz Collection of Boston, the Walker Collection of San Diego, the Vess Collection of Detroit, the Roosevelt Collection of Palm Beach, the Price Collection of Connecticut, and the Elder Collection of San Francisco. | |||
| ] in ]]] | |||
| == Namesake == | |||
| The asteroid ], discovered in 1985, was named after him. | |||
| == Selected list of works == | |||
| <div class="references-small" style="-moz-column-count:2; column-count: 2;"> | |||
| * ''Trees'', ink (1920) | |||
| * ''St. Bavo's, Haarlem'', ink (1920) | |||
| * ''Flor de Pascua (The Easter Flower)'', ]/book illustrations (1921) | |||
| * ''Eight Heads'', ] (1922) | |||
| * '']'' also known as ''Dolphins in Phosphorescent Sea'', ] (1923) | |||
| * '']'', woodcut (1928) | |||
| * ''Street in Scanno, Abruzzi'', ] (1930) | |||
| * '']'', ] (1930) | |||
| * '']'', ] (1930) | |||
| * ''Palizzi, Calabria'', ] (1930) | |||
| * ''Pentedattilo, Calabria'', ] (1930) | |||
| * '']'', ] (1931) | |||
| * ''Ravello and the Coast of Amalfi'', ] (1931) | |||
| * ''Covered Alley in Atrani, Coast of Amalfi'', wood engraving (1931) | |||
| * ''Phosphorescent Sea'', ] (1933) | |||
| * '']'', ] (1934) | |||
| * '']'' also known as ''Self-Portrait in Spherical Mirror'', ] (1935) | |||
| * ''Inside St. Peter's'', wood engraving (1935) | |||
| * ''Portrait of G.A. Escher'', ] (1935) | |||
| * ''“Hell”'', ], (copied from a painting by ]) (1935) | |||
| * '']'', series of drawings that continued until the 1960’s (1936) | |||
| * ''] (His first impossible reality)'', ] (1937) | |||
| * '']'', ] (1937) | |||
| * ''Day and Night'', ] (1938) | |||
| * ''Cycle'', ] (1938) | |||
| * '']'', ] (1938) | |||
| * '']'', ] (1938) | |||
| * '']'', ] (1939-1940) | |||
| * ''Verbum (Earth, Sky and Water)'', ] (1942) | |||
| * '']'', ] (1943) | |||
| * ''Ant'', ] (1943) | |||
| * ''Encounter'', ] (1944) | |||
| * ''Doric Columns'', wood engraving (1945) | |||
| * ''Three Spheres I'', wood engraving (1945) | |||
| * '']'', ] (1946) | |||
| * '']'', ] (1946) | |||
| * ''Another World Mezzotint'' also known as ''Other World Gallery'', ] (1946) | |||
| * ''Eye'', ] (1946) | |||
| * '']'' also known as ''Other World'', wood engraving and ] (1947) | |||
| * ''Crystal'', ] (1947) | |||
| * ''Up and Down'' also known as ''High and Low'', ] (1947) | |||
| * '']'', ] (1948) | |||
| * ''Dewdrop'', ] (1948) | |||
| * '']'', wood engraving (1948) | |||
| * ''Double Planetoid'', wood engraving (1949) | |||
| * ''Order and Chaos (Contrast)'', ] (1950) | |||
| * ''Rippled Surface'', ] and linoleum cut (1950) | |||
| * '']'', ] (1951) | |||
| * '']'', ] (1951) | |||
| * ''House of Stairs II'', ] (1951) | |||
| * '']'', ] (1952) | |||
| * '']'', (1952) | |||
| * ''Dragon'', ] ] and watercolor (1952) | |||
| * ''Cubic Space Division'', ] (1952) | |||
| * '']'', ] (1953) | |||
| * ''Tetrahedral Planetoid'', ] (1954) | |||
| * ''Compass Rose (Order and Chaos II)'', ] (1955) | |||
| * '']'', ] (1955) | |||
| * '']'', ] (1955) | |||
| * ''Print Gallery'', ] (1956) | |||
| * ''Mosaic II'', ] (1957) | |||
| * '']'', ] (1957) | |||
| * '']'', ] (1958) | |||
| * ''Sphere Spirals'', ] (1958) | |||
| * '']'', ] (1960) | |||
| * '']'', ] (1961) | |||
| * ''Möbius Strip II (Red Ants)'' ] (1963) | |||
| * ''Knot'', pencil and crayon (1966) | |||
| * '']'', ] (1967-1968) | |||
| * '']'', ] (1969)</div> | |||
| == Bibliography == | |||
| * M.C. Escher, ''The Graphic Work of M.C. Escher'', Ballantine, 1971. Includes Escher's own commentary. | |||
| * M.C. Escher, ''The Fantastic World of M.C. Escher'', Video collection of examples of the development of his art, and interviews, Director, Michele Emmer.<!-- invalid ISBN removed --> | |||
| * Locher, J.L. (2000). ''The Magic of M. C. Escher''. ] ISBN 0-8109-6720-0. | |||
| * Ernst, Bruno; Escher, M.C. (1995). ''The Magic Mirror of M.C. Escher (Taschen Series)''. TASCHEN America Llc. ISBN 1-886155-00-3 Escher's art with commentary by Ernst on Escher's life and art, including several pages on his use of polyhedra. | |||
| * Abrams (1995). ''The M.C. Escher Sticker Book''. Harry N. Abrams. ISBN 0-8109-2638-5 . | |||
| * "Escher, M. C.." The World Book Encyclopedia. 10th ed. 2001. | |||
| * O'Connor, J. J. "Escher." Escher. 01 2000. University of St Andrews, Scotland. ] ]. http://www-gap.dcs.st-and.ac.uk/~history/Mathematicians/Escher.html. | |||
| * Schattschneider, Doris and Walker, Wallace. ''M. C. Escher Kaleidocycles'', Pomegranate Communications; Petaluma, California, 1987. ISBN 0-906212-28-6. | |||
| * Schattschneider, Doris. ''M.C. Escher : visions of symmetry'', New York, N.Y. : Harry N. Abrams, 2004. ISBN 0-8109-4308-5. | |||
| * ''M.C. Escher's legacy: a centennial celebration''; collection of articles coming from the M.C. Escher Centennial Conference, Rome, 1998 / Doris Schattschneider, Michele Emmer (editors). Berlin; London: Springer-Verlag, 2003. ISBN 3-540-42458-X (alk. paper), ISBN 3-540-42458-X (hbk). | |||
| * ''M.C. Escher: His Life and Complete Graphic Work'', edited by J. L. Locher, Amsterdam 1981. | |||
| == References == | |||
| <references/> | |||
| == See also == | |||
| {{Portal|Art}} | |||
| * '']'' by ] | |||
| * ] | |||
| * ] | |||
| * ] | |||
| * ] | |||
| == External links == | |||
| {{wikiquote}} | |||
| * | |||
| * — Educating users since 1995. Large gallery, discussion forum and tessellation contests. | |||
| * | |||
| * | |||
| * | |||
| * - Applying mathematics to Escher's ''Print Gallery'' | |||
| * | |||
| * | |||
| * - physical replicas of some of Escher's "impossible" designs. | |||
| * | |||
| * | |||
| {{Persondata | |||
| | NAME=Escher, M. C. | |||
| | ALTERNATIVE NAMES=Escher, Maurits Cornelis (full name) | |||
| | SHORT DESCRIPTION=Artist | |||
| | DATE OF BIRTH=], ] | |||
| | PLACE OF BIRTH=], ] | |||
| | DATE OF DEATH=], ] | |||
| | PLACE OF DEATH=], ] | |||
| }} | |||
| {{DEFAULTSORT:Escher, M. C.}} | |||
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Revision as of 12:58, 11 April 2008
DONT CHANGE IT BACK TO NORMAL! STOP! THANK YOU!