Maurits Cornelis Escher: pictures, biography

In addition to artistic endowments, Mauritz Escher had a unique gift that he developed all his life, namely, the ability to look at the world and see it from an unusual angle. This is a great rarity - to see beyond the usual the unexpected, nobody before noticed.

Creativity of Maurice Escher

In the family of engineer George Escher and his wife Sarah in 1898 in the Netherlands was born the fifth son, who was named Maurice. They lived in the building of Leeuwarden, where now is the museum "Princess". The family consisted of intellectuals and artists in the broadest sense of the word. Esher's younger cousin was a composer, that is, a person sensitive to high harmony, built on precise mathematical principles.

Seriously, Maurice Escher studied with S. de Mesquita and deliberately chose the work of an engraver, not an artist. As a basis he tried various materials - linoleum, stone (we will specify that this material is considered only for reception of prints, instead of engravings), a tree. If originally M. Escher created his works on the contrasts of black and white, then later he will introduce color into his work.

Early works (1916-1922)

Traditional engravings are made either on linoleum, or on a tree. It's not the same Asher, whose paintings are recognized right away.

The Italian period (1922-1935)

One of Escher's favorite books was "Alice in the Looking-Glass". At the same time, he continues to study the art of the 15th century in northern European countries. The result of this was the lithography of 1935 "A Hand with a Mirror Sphere". It is also known as a self-portrait. The hand that holds the spherical ball is painted extremely realistically, so that all the lines of life and mind and every crease on the fingers are visible. Inside the ball there is a picture of Escher's studio in Rome: furniture distorted by a ball, curved windows and a ceiling. On the walls you can see bookshelves, paintings in frames. One of them depicts a puppet of the Indonesian puppet theater. The engraver himself looks at the viewer directly, holding the sphere from the inside so that the thumb inside comes in contact with the thumb outside. Similarly depicted and little finger.

The prerequisite for this work was Escher's "Still-life with a spherical mirror" of 1934. In this lithography, the engraver depicted himself at work. It is inside a rounded bottle with mirror walls. It lies on the newspapers, which, like all subjects, are placed on a closed book. Nearby there is a metal bird with a human head. Both she and the newspapers are partially reflected inside the bottle.

In this work, all gradations of black color are studied: deep black background, black shine of the metal of the bird, shades of black and gray inside the bottle. The portrait of the father with a magnifying glass in his hands is executed with scrupulous accuracy, very realistic and with filial love. In the Italian period, Escher, whose pictures exactly follow nature, has not yet approached the study of three-dimensional space.

Mirror symmetry of objects

The master was very influenced by the familiarity with the Arab mosaics that he saw in Alhambra and Cordoba, as well as with some geometric rules. All this was adopted by Escher, whose paintings immerse us in the world of symmetry. He takes the figures and makes a mosaic of them. One of the most revealing is "Reptiles" (March 1943). At the lithography, the viewer sees the table. On it lies a drawing with a mosaic pattern of reptiles. In the right edge of the picture, one of them begins to come to life and crawl out of a sheet of paper. It is just beginning to learn not a flat, but a three-dimensional world. Others, revived and gaining volume, actively crawl through the book, the triangle, crawl onto the dodecahedron, release steam from the nostrils on it, crawl onto the paper and, closing the circle, again become a flat mosaic.

This image is paradoxical and with a touch of humor. Does it have a philosophical overtones? Maybe. After all, there are four elements on the table, of which the world is made up. This is the earth in the pot, the fire enclosed in a box of matches, the water that is poured into a glass, and the air that the lizard exhales. On the table is a small book with Latin letters, which confuses. Some people took it for Job's book. In fact, this is only a brand of cigarette paper. In brackets, it should be said that Asher was an inveterate smoker.

Of course, the "Day and Night" (1938) work is good. This thing also refers to the theme of symmetry. Asher, whose paintings by this time had not yet become popular, is very keen on geometry. In this woodcut, the movement of light birds from left to right from light to a mirror-reflected night is initially seen. And only then does their "negative" appear, as in the photo: black birds fly in the white sky in the opposite direction. And if we look in the opposite direction, it seems that the dark night approaches the white day. Chaotic turns into order, and vice versa. This is the duality of the perception of this engraving.

Mirror landscape

In December 1955, a new graphic work was published. Before that Escher's landscapes were quite realistic, ordinary and familiar. They were very bright, as, for example, "Snow", created in the Alps. "Three worlds", like everything that makes Escher, surprise. This is a large pool or a lake (who as imagined imagine) in the fall. On the surface of the water float fallen leaves from the trees. The surface of the water is the first world. The second is in the depths of the lake, where we see a big fish. She is not alone there, as it might seem. Crowns of trees, reflected in the water, as in a mirror, seem to be invisible to the viewer of the trees. What you need to think about is the third world.

Paradoxical worlds

Both paintings and engravings by Escher lead to the world of paradox. In them, the viewer is surprised and even stunned by the symmetry, and do not leave indifferent prospects, leading a glance into infinity. Master does not draw boundaries between art, mathematics and philosophy. They harmoniously flow into each other.

The theory of relativity in Escher's work

Another lithography, which Esher printed in December 1953, is "Relativity." It is executed in the style of surrealism. Here is depicted a world in which the normal laws of gravity do not work. The entire architectural structure is in the center of an idyllic community. It has windows, doorways leading to the park superstructure. Most of the residents are absolutely randomly going by their economic needs. All the figures are dressed in the same clothes. Their faceless heads are likened to bulbs. The structure of the building consists of seven staircases. Each of them can be used by people who are in different gravitational worlds. There are three sources of gravity in the picture. Simply put, they are all perpendicular to each other. Within each gravity well, the usual physical laws apply.

This creates interesting effects. On the top staircase, two residents, belonging to different sources of gravity, walk in the same direction along one side of the stairs, but one of them descends, and the other rises. On the other two staircases the residents use the same span, but from different directions. They go in one direction, but they will come to different places. The painting also shows three parks that belong to different gravity wells. All doors except one lead to the basement below the parks. This adds a surreal effect to the picture. It is valuable from an artistic and scientific point of view.

Artist Maurice Asher

In mathematics and philosophy, skillfully mastering the cutter and drawing, skillfully playing black with all its gradations, drew inspiration from the Dutch master. A poet in the soul, he believed in harmony in the work, paraphrasing Pushkin, with algebra. M. Esher brilliantly united art and science. The laws of physics, in particular optical effects, were studied very deeply. His illusions are created mainly by the play of light and shadow. This is especially evident when creating voluminous geometric shapes, for example, "Cuba". The game of space in Escher appears in the lithograph "Waterfall". Romantic triple rotational symmetries with snakes forming a circle are very romantic (1969). In general, with reference to Escher's creations, rather, one should use the phrase "logical riddles". Fantasy and knowledge he was not to occupy, and every picture he could put a person in a dead end. But, peering at his works, you find the iron logic, harmony and laws by which they are built.