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Maurits Cornelis Escher (17 June 1898 – 27 March 1972), usually referred to as M.C. Escher (/ˈɛʃər/, Dutch: [ˈmʌurɪts kɔrˈneːlɪs ˈɛʃər] Audio file "Maurits_Cornelis_Escher.ogg" not found), was a Dutch graphic artist. He is known for his often mathematically inspired woodcuts, lithographs, and mezzotints. These feature impossible constructions, explorations of infinity, architecture, and tessellations.

Early life

Maurits Cornelis, nicknamed "Mauk", was born in Leeuwarden, The Netherlands, in a house that forms part of the Princessehof Ceramics Museum today. He was the youngest son of civil engineer George Arnold Escher and his second wife, Sara Gleichman. In 1903, the family moved to Arnhem where he attended primary school and secondary school until 1918.

He was a sickly child, and was placed in a special school at the age of seven and failed the second grade. Though he excelled at drawing, his grades were generally poor. He also took carpentry and piano lessons until he was thirteen years old. In 1919, Escher attended the Haarlem School of Architecture and Decorative Arts. He briefly studied architecture, but he failed a number of subjects (partly due to a persistent skin infection) and switched to decorative arts. Here he studied under Samuel Jessurun de Mesquita, with whom he would remain friends for years. In 1922 Escher left the school, having gained experience in drawing and making woodcuts.

Later life

In 1922, an important year of his life, Escher traveled through Italy (Florence, San Gimignano, Volterra, Siena, Ravello) and Spain (Madrid, Toledo, Granada). He was impressed by the Italian countryside and by the Alhambra, 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 Rome and stayed there until 1935, when the political climate under Mussolini became unbearable. Their son, Giorgio Arnaldo Escher, named after his grandfather, was born in Rome. The family next moved to Château-d'Œx, Switzerland, where they remained for two years.

Escher, who had been very fond of and inspired by the landscapes in Italy, was decidedly unhappy in Switzerland, so in 1937, the family moved again, to Ukkel, a small town near Brussels, Belgium. World War II forced them to move in January 1941, this time to Baarn, the Netherlands, where Escher lived until 1970. Most of Escher's better-known pictures date from this period. The sometimes cloudy, cold, wet weather of the Netherlands 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.

Escher moved to the Rosa Spier house in Laren in 1970, a retirement home for artists where he had his own studio. He died at the home on 27 March 1972, at age 73.

PUDDIN HEAD!

Legacy

The special way of thinking and the rich graphic work of M.C. Escher has had a continuous influence in science and art, as well as references in pop culture. Ownership of the Escher intellectual property and of his unique art works have been separated from each other.

In 1969, Escher's business advisor, Jan W. Vermeulen, author of a biography in Dutch on the artist, established the M.C. Escher Stichting (M.C. Escher Foundation), and transferred into this entity virtually all of Escher's unique work as well as hundreds of his original prints. These works were lent by the Foundation to the Hague Museum. Upon Escher's death, his three sons dissolved the Foundation, and they became partners in the ownership of the art works. In 1980, this holding was sold to an American art dealer and the Hague Museum. The Museum obtained all of the documentation and the smaller portion of the art works.

The copyrights remained the possession of the three sons - who later sold them to Cordon Art, a Dutch company. Control of the copyrights was subsequently transferred to The M.C. Escher Company B.V. of Baarn, Netherlands, which licenses use of the copyrights on all of Escher's art and on his spoken and written text, and also controls the trademarks. Filing of the trademark "M.C. Escher" in the United States was opposed, but the Dutch company prevailed in the courts on the grounds that an artist or his heirs have a right to trademark his name.

A related entity, the M.C. Escher Foundation of Baarn, promotes Escher's work by organizing exhibitions, publishing books and producing films about his life and work.

The primary institutional collections of original works by M.C. Escher are the Escher Museum, a subsidiary of the Haags Gemeentemuseum in The Hague; the National Gallery of Art (Washington, DC); the National Gallery of Canada (Ottawa); the Israel Museum (Jerusalem); Huis ten Bosch (Nagasaki, Japan); and the Boston Public Library.

Selected works

• Trees, ink (1920)
• St. Bavo's, Haarlem, ink (1920)
• Flor de Pascua (The Easter Flower), woodcut/book illustrations (1921)
• Eight Heads, woodcut (1922)
• Dolphins also known as Dolphins in Phosphorescent Sea, woodcut (1923)
• Tower of Babel, woodcut (1928)
• Street in Scanno, Abruzzi, lithograph (1930)
• Castrovalva, lithograph (1930)
• The Bridge, lithograph (1930)
• Palizzi, Calabria, woodcut (1930)
• Pentedattilo, Calabria, lithograph (1930)
• Atrani, Coast of Amalfi, lithograph (1931)
• Ravello and the Coast of Amalfi, lithograph (1931)
• Covered Alley in Atrani, Coast of Amalfi, wood engraving (1931)
• Phosphorescent Sea, lithograph (1933)
• Still Life with Spherical Mirror, lithograph (1934)
• Hand with Reflecting Sphere also known as Self-Portrait in Spherical Mirror, lithograph (1935)
• Inside St. Peter's, wood engraving (1935)
• Portrait of G.A. Escher, lithograph (1935)
• “Hell”, lithograph, (copied from a painting by Hieronymus Bosch) (1935)
• Regular Division of the Plane, series of drawings that continued until the 1960s (1936)
• Still Life and Street (his first impossible reality), woodcut (1937)
• Metamorphosis I, woodcut (1937)
• Day and Night, woodcut (1938)
• Cycle, lithograph (1938)
• Sky and Water I, woodcut (1938)
• Sky and Water II, lithograph (1938)
• Metamorphosis II, woodcut (1939–1940)
• Verbum (Earth, Sky and Water), lithograph (1942)
• Reptiles, lithograph (1943)
• Ant, lithograph (1943)
• Encounter, lithograph (1944)
• Doric Columns, wood engraving (1945)
• Three Spheres I, wood engraving (1945)
• Magic Mirror, lithograph (1946)
• Three Spheres II, lithograph (1946)
• Another World Mezzotint also known as Other World Gallery, mezzotint (1946)
• Eye, mezzotint (1946)
• Another World also known as Other World, wood engraving and woodcut (1947)
• Crystal, mezzotint (1947)
• Up and Down also known as High and Low, lithograph (1947)
• Drawing Hands, lithograph (1948)
• Dewdrop, mezzotint (1948)
• Stars, wood engraving (1948)
• Double Planetoid, wood engraving (1949)
• Order and Chaos (Contrast), lithograph (1950)
• Rippled Surface, woodcut and linoleum cut (1950)
• Curl-up, lithograph (1951)
• House of Stairs, lithograph (1951)
• House of Stairs II, lithograph (1951)
• Puddle, woodcut (1952)
• Gravitation, (1952)
• Dragon, woodcut lithograph and watercolor (1952)
• Cubic Space Division, lithograph (1952)
• Relativity, lithograph (1953)
• Tetrahedral Planetoid, woodcut (1954)
• Compass Rose (Order and Chaos II), lithograph (1955)
• Convex and Concave, lithograph (1955)
• Three Worlds, lithograph (1955)
• Print Gallery, lithograph (1956)
• Mosaic II, lithograph (1957)
• Cube with Magic Ribbons, lithograph (1957)
• Belvedere, lithograph (1958)
• Sphere Spirals, woodcut (1958)
• Ascending and Descending, lithograph (1960)
• Waterfall, lithograph (1961)
• Möbius Strip II (Red Ants) woodcut (1963)
• Knot, pencil and crayon (1966)
• Metamorphosis III, woodcut (1967–1968)
• Snakes, woodcut (1969)

See also

• Gödel, Escher, Bach by Douglas Hofstadter
• echochrome
• Giovanni Battista Piranesi
• Impossible object
• Ravello
• Strange loop

Notes

1. Duden Aussprachewörterbuch (6 ed.). Mannheim: Bibliographisches Institut & F.A. Brockhaus AG. 2005. ISBN 3-411-04066-1.
2. "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.
3. ^ Barbara E, PhD. Bryden. Sundial: Theoretical Relationships Between Psychological Type, Talent, And Disease. Gainesville, Fla: Center for Applications of Psychological Type. ISBN 0-935652-46-9.

References

• 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.
• Locher, J.L. (2000). The Magic of M. C. Escher. Harry N. Abrams, Inc. 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. 17 June 2005. 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.

External links

• M.C. Escher official website.
• Math and the Art of M.C. Escher, USA: SLU.
• Artful Mathematics: The Heritage of M. C. Escher (PDF), USA: AMS.
• Escherization problem and its solution, CA: University of Waterloo.
• Escher for Real, IL: Technion — physical replicas of some of Escher's "impossible" designs.
• M.C. Escher: Life and Work, USA: NGA.
• US copy right proctection for UK artists, UK. Copyright issue regarding Escher from the Artquest Artlaw archive.
• Schattschneider, Doris (2010). "The Mathematical Side of M. C. Escher" (PDF). Notices of the American Mathematical Society. 57 (6). USA: 706–18. Retrieved 2010-07-09. {{cite journal}}: Unknown parameter |month= ignored (help)

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• M. C. Escher
• Dutch illustrators
• Dutch printmakers
• Modern printmakers
• 1898 births
• 1972 deaths
• Impossible objects
• People from Leeuwarden