JOURNEY TO INFINITY: ESCHER’S WORLD OF WONDER

EARLY WORKS: ART NOUVEAU AND NATURE

M.C. Escher's early works were inspired by Art Nouveau, a popular art style originated in the late 19th century in Europe. He also had a reverence for nature and created numerous prints representing realistic drawings of insects and flowers.

His journeys in Italy between 1921 and 1935 inspired him to extensively depict its countryside.

The characteristics of M.C. Escher’s work come from his meticulous observation of nature and his passion for the geometrical regularity he noticed in the world surrounding him.  

TESSELLATION

The crucial turning point in M. C. Escher's artistic development was his second trip to southern Spain in 1936. There, he visited famous Moorish architectural landmarks such as the Alhambra Palace in Granada and the Mezquita in Cordoba. These visits inspired him to methodically study the patterns the artisans of the 14th century used to decorate the walls and the arches of the Moorish monuments.

He then became passionate about tessellations: geometric decoration, where triangles, stars or squares repeat like tiles to cover a plane without leaving any gaps. He meticulously produced over 100 watercolours showing different motifs of tessellation in an exercise book. These motifs represented 17 different ways of filling a flat surface with regular patterns and his study of various colouring possibilities.  

METAMORPHOSIS

M.C. Escher created a world in which whirls of transformations are based on different kinds of tessellations and where abstract shapes change into concrete forms. A world where birds can gradually transform into fishes or a lizard morph into the cell of a honey comb. At times, transformations lead to opposite combinations such as day and night, or good and evil.

Escher did not limit his research to the regular division of the plane; he was also fascinated by reflective surfaces as depicted in his famous self-portrait Hand with Reflecting Sphere.

COMMERCIAL WORKS

EXPLORING INFINITY

M.C. Escher’s understanding of mathematics was largely visual and intuitive. His compositions explored errors in perspective, through structures that, at first sight, seemed perfectly plausible, but upon closer inspection turned out to be impossible to create.

In 1954, he started interacting with scientists. This resulted in a vast source of inspiration for his research, mainly on impossible constructions, optical illusions and representation of the infinity.

Some of his most famous works: Ascending and Descending, Print Gallery and Relativity highlight M.C. Escher’s attempts to represent the limitless. These masterpieces reflect an essential aspect of his art: its intricate relation to mathematics and endless compositions.

ESCHER MANIA

Until today, references to the works of M.C Escher can be found in various domains, ranging from artistic fields to popular culture.

Numerous contemporary painters and digital artists have been inspired by M.C. Escher’s work on tessellation and have interpreted it in their own artistic language. Musicians and singers from the late 1960’s were also fond of M.C.Escher’s creative process. In the domain of comics and cartoons, his geometric world inspired the creators of famous comic characters.

They showcase how the Escher Mania has affected all creative domains and how M.C. Escher’s work is still influencing contemporary culture.