TESSELLATIONS

Method & Galleries

MAURITS CORNELIS ESCHER

Art is the group of human works intended to touch the senses and emotions of humans through various creative activities, and since the twentieth century artists have generally expressed their feelings driven by spontaneous impulses that they cannot and do not want to describe, or only in a confused way. There are, however, artists who express the beauty of the world in a completely cerebral way, using their reasoned intelligence and who can explain to you the logic of every detail of their works, no matter how strange they may be. Escher is by far the most famous of these.

MAURITS CORNELIS ESCHER was born in Leeuwarden, in the Netherlands, on June 17, 1898. His youth passed uneventfully in a family where the father was an engineer and where the brothers studied science. His schooling was ordinary, not to say mediocre: he repeated two classes and failed his baccalaureate. The only subject that interested him was drawing, so when he entered the School of Architecture and Decorative Arts in Haarlem in 1919 to study architecture that his father advised him to do, he quickly changed direction and devoted himself to the study of art. The technique of wood engraving with its white/black duality particularly interests him and he is constantly perfecting his art.

He finished his studies in 1922 and immediately undertook numerous trips: notably to Spain, where he was fascinated by the mosaics of the Alhambra in Granada, and to Italy where the landscapes inspired him so much that he settled in Rome from 1923 to 1935. He married Jetta Umiker there and had two boys: George and Arthur. He spends the sunny days going on long hikes in the south of the country where he draws everything that interests him. In the winter, he works, from his drawings, to make engravings on wire wood or standing wood as well as lithographs. His themes are mainly nature and architecture, but from time to time, certain works begin to reflect a more original and personal research such as Castle in Spain, Tower of Babel or Hand with Reflecting Globe.

In 1935, as fascism developed in Italy, he settled at Château d'Oex, in Switzerland. The year 1936 saw him once again set off on a long journey aboard a cargo ship which sailed along the coast of Italy towards Spain. He returned to the Alhambra where, this time, he made numerous sketches of the mosaics. The following year, he moved to Uccle, in Belgium, where he had one more boy: Jan. Deprived of the landscapes of southern Italy, Escher's style will evolve to increasingly reflect his astonishment and admiration at the beauty and order of the world. Always with perfect graphics and not without humor, he will strive to represent his own ideas and it will first be the periodic fillings of the plan with figurative motifs which will be his main theme. Inspired by Moorish mosaics, he seeks to replace these polygons with more familiar shapes such as animals or humans. In this style of drawing, the contours do not just delineate one figure as usual but two at the same time. This is a challenge that excites Escher. Moreover, these figures which fit together and repeat themselves suggest an infinite continuity and that fulfills him.

His half-brother Beer, professor of geology at the University of Leiden, then revealed to him that he was unknowingly applying “two-dimensional crystallography” and introduced him to the 17 symmetry groups in the plane. To better master the subject, Escher will develop in a notebook a “non-specialist theory” which he will complete in 1942 and which will be represented, among other things, the various possible types of color symmetry groups while these will appear in scientific literature only in 1956. The regular divisions of the plan will remain its richest source of inspiration throughout his life, according to his own words. They will be the basis of his first major successes (Day and Night, Sky and Water).

In 1941, fleeing the German invasion, he then left Belgium to return to his native country in Baarn. His favorite themes, in addition to tilings, will now be cyclical evolutions, reflections, inversions, polyhedra, visual illusions, the plane/space conflict, curious perspectives, or even impossible worlds or the approach to 'infinity. They are the ones who will make Escher famous.

In the 1940s he became more famous among scientists - who recognized in him thoughts similar to theirs, although he used a completely different mode of expression - than in the world of art which found his overly cerebral compositions. Then in the 1950s he was finally discovered by the general public. In 1951 articles appeared in important American journals. 1954 saw the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam organize a major exhibition of his works on the occasion of the International Mathematics Congress. Escher will meet many scientists there with whom he will remain in contact. In 1958 he published Regelmatige vlakverdeling (Periodic filling of a plan). 1959 saw the first book dedicated to him (Grafiek en tekeningen M. C. Escher).

In 1960 he gave lectures at mathematics and crystallography conferences in England and America. Professor MacGillavry dedicated a work to him in 1965 (Symmetry Aspects of M. C. Escher Periodic Drawings). We see it everywhere, on record covers, on posters, t-shirts, wrapping paper and in illustrations on numerous scientific and popular books. This is glory for Escher who will remain very humble, will not change anything in his way of living and will spend part of his fortune helping the poor. But illness had been stalking him for several years and in 1969 he produced his last print: Snakes. It’s another approach to infinity and aesthetically it will be the most beautiful. On March 27, 1972, Escher died. He can join up with infinity, he has amazed the world.