M. C. Escher

Maurits Cornelis Escher ( born June 17, 1898 in Leeuwarden, Friesland Province, † March 27, 1972 in Hilversum, North Holland province ) was a Dutch artist and graphic designer who has become best known for his portrayal of impossible figures.

Life

MC Escher was the youngest of five sons of civil engineer George Arnold Escher 1898 Princessehof Leeuwarden in the world. 1903 the family moved to Arnhem, where the young Escher graduated from basic education. However, he was a pretty bad student, had to repeat two classes, and despite his drawing talent even in art bad grades. F. W. van der Haagen, Escher's art teacher in high school taught him the technique of linocut. 1917 the family moved again to ( Oosterbeek ). Escher began in 1919 to study architecture in Haarlem, he dropped out after only one week. His teacher there Jessurun Samuel de Mesquita, a Portuguese -born Jew who recognized the extraordinary talent and taught him further into graphic techniques. Escher soon dominated the woodcut technique completely. Mesquitas strong personality has also exerted great influence on Escher's further development as a graphic designer.

From 1921 he traveled to Italy several times, mostly on foot or donkey, as well as Spain, where he grappled with Arabic motifs ( Alhambra). In 1923 he met the Swiss Jetta Umiker, whom he married in Viareggio in 1924. The couple settled in the vicinity of Rome to settle permanently. On July 23, 1926, the birth of their first son George. Arthur, her second son was born on December 8, 1928. During the 1920s, Escher gained a certain popularity and in 1929 had the same five exhibitions in the Netherlands and Switzerland. Until 1937, predominantly Mediterranean landscape images, including the large lithograph of a small Abruzzendorfes ( Castrovalva 1930) emerged. Especially in the U.S. Escher had attracted attention.

From aversion against Italian fascism, the Escher moved their residence to Château d'Oex in Switzerland. On a cargo ship traveling the Adriatic Sea, Sicily and the Mediterranean Coast. After a second visit to the Alhambra in 1936 changed Escher theme, began the period of metamorphosis (day and night 1938). 1937 was followed by a further move in the near Brussels, and he experimented with increasingly solid fills.

When the Nazis invaded in Brussels, the family moved again, this in Baarn Netherlands. His teacher Mesquita was abducted in 1944 by the German occupiers and murdered in Auschwitz concentration camp. Escher could at least save a large part of Mesquitas work.

After the war, Escher learned the mezzotint technique and turned from 1946 reinforced perspective images ( above and below 1947) to. He received increasingly well-paid jobs, sold many of his prints and in 1950 was in the U.S. a sought-after artist. 1955 Escher was awarded a knighthood of the Order of Oranje Nassau.

In 1964 he fell ill, had surgery, and two years after a second operation (1972 ), he died at the close family circle in pink - Spier house in Hilversum.

Work

Graphic

Escher created especially graphic work and brought it in the techniques of woodcut, of wood engraving and lithography for technical perfection. As a young man he traveled through Italy and the Mediterranean to Portugal and created many landscapes and architectural studies in a wide range of graphic styles. The motives of the southern landscapes formed at the same time forms the canon of his later " non-natural " work.

Through his many travels Escher had a special love with the sea and shipping. So he was still at the age lectures on the manifold phenomena of nature and impressions that meet a ship traveling in the Mediterranean.

The impossible figures

His best-known works, which brought in almost Escher the status of a pop star, deal with the representation of perspective impossibilities, optical illusions and multistable perceptual phenomena. We see objects or buildings that appear to be at first glance, of course, are on the second but completely contradictory.

Designed by Lionel Penrose infinite Penrose staircase formed the basis for Escher's Waterfall. It shows a stream that travels from a water wheel in the foreground in a zigzag pattern from the viewer, every corner part of a total of two towers on pillars. Finally, the water runs as a waterfall in the foreground down and passes over the waterwheel from the beginning and makes the construction seems to be a perpetual motion machine. The water runs mostly uphill, yet seemingly ever more distant, although the corners of the watercourse still lie alternately in one of the towers. The picture shows a Treppauf Treppab constructed in a similar manner quadrangular, endless stairs.

The impossible crate is the starting point of the image Belvedere. Upper floor and basement of a prospect pavilions in a northern Italian landscape are rotated by 90 ° to each other. A ladder, which stands on the floor of the basement, leaning against the outer wall of the upper floor. The columns supporting the building, changing imperceptibly the pages. The paradoxical building still looks completely stable at first glance.

Metamorphosis

Starting from the Ornamental Art of the Moorish majolica, Metamorphoses, the Escher had studied in southern Spain, he developed in his paintings metamorphosis metamorphosis I to III, and many more a technique of regular surface filling by some fantastic characters. He still refined by repeatedly made ​​in this area patterns incorporate slight variations, so that transform the figures used are as birds to fish.

Other topics

Escher was dedicated to his work, including issues such as Möbius strips, crystal forms, reflections, optical distortions and fractals. Known is a self-portrait in the reflection of a glass ball.

The " kaleidocycles " he did not invent. These are existing bodies which can be rotated so that the viewer sees all sides of the triangle of at least eight tetrahedra. These bodies are rather a continuation of his work by Doris Schattschneider and Wallace Walker, the editor of the book " M. C. Escher kaleidocycles ".

Commercial work / works in public space

Escher created only a few commercial work, so a lot of metamorphosis meter mural for a Dutch bank, a pillar design for a school and a cookie jar in the shape of a dodecahedron with starfish motif in limited edition. His designs for bills, for which he has taken part in a competition, failed because they were not tamper-proof. Were also not realized designs for stamps.

Reception

Escher 's art history always remained a problem. His discussion of perspective and optical illusions impossibilities is very different from the classical themes visual arts and can be fit into any of the classic drawers. So Escher was not accepted by the art world for a long time as an artist in the classical sense.

In contrast, Escher was early appreciated by scientists and mathematicians because its clean, precise work approach in an intuitive and sensual way mathematical topics and illustrate problems of science. Escher was often invited to mathematics lectures, though he said of himself, he knew nothing about mathematics. He also held himself high traffic lectures about his work across Europe.

The paradox and often Mystical his mysterious images also found favor with esoteric and pop culture of the 20th century. His paintings were printed as a poster and used as album cover.

2002 a private Escher museum was set up in the former palace of Queen Emma, showing next to his graphic work and private photos and working sketches. The latter give an impression of how the artist had designed area fills and impossible geometries.