M. C. Escher
M. C. Escher
Maurits Cornelis Escher; 17 June 1898 – 27 March 1972) was a Dutch graphic artist who made mathematically inspired woodcuts, lithographs, and mezzotints...
NationalityDutch
ProfessionArtist
Date of Birth17 June 1898
dream drug-use alcohol
I don't use drugs, my dreams are frightening enough.
education book math
I never got a pass mark in math ... Just imagine - mathematicians now use my prints to illustrate their books.
beautiful fun two
I try in my prints to testify that we live in a beautiful and orderly world, not in a chaos without norms, even though that is how it sometimes appears. My subjects are also often playful: I cannot refrain from demonstrating the nonsensicalness of some of what we take to be irrefutable certainties. It is, for example, a pleasure to deliberately mix together objects of two and three dimensions, surface and spatial relationships, and to make fun of gravity.
life knowledge discovery
He who wonders discovers that this in itself is wonder.
stars space trying
So let us then try to climb the mountain, not by stepping on what is below us, but to pull us up at what is above us, for my part at the stars; amen.
education art jigsaw-puzzles
Science and art sometimes can touch one another, like two pieces of the jigsaw puzzle which is our human life, and that contact may be made across the boderline between the two respective domains.
work games serious
My work is a game, a very serious game.
men law discovery
There is something breathtaking about the basic laws of crystals. They are in no sense a discovery of the human mind; they just "are" - they exist quite independently of us. The most that man can do is become aware, in a moment of clarity, that they are there, and take cognizance of them.
art artist games
All my works are games, serious game.
believe i-believe wells
I believe that producing pictures, as I do, is almost solely a question of wanting so very much to do it well.
crazy illustration reptiles
A woman once rang me up and said, 'Mr. Escher, I am absolutely crazy about your work. In your print -Reptiles- you have given such a striking illustration of reincarnation.' I replied, 'Madam, if that's the way you see it, so be it.'
thinking delight path
I came to the ... open gate of mathematics. From here, well-trodden paths lead in every direction, and since then I have often spent time there. Sometimes I think ... I have trodden all the paths ... and then I suddenly discover a new path and experience fresh delights.
art math realms
For me it remains an open question whether [this work] pertains to the realm of mathematics or to that of art.
art years ideas
I am always wandering around in enigmas. There are young people who constantly come to tell me: you, too, are making Op Art. I haven't the slightest idea what that is, Op Art. I've been doing this work for thirty years now.