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
funny dream order
I might be in the basement. I'll go upstairs and check. We adore chaos because we love to produce order. I don't use drugs; my dreams are frightening enough.
fun two three
I can't keep from fooling around with our irrefutable certainties. It is, for example, a pleasure knowingly to mix up two and three dimensionalities, flat and spatial, and to make fun of gravity.
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.
fifty pleasant seems strange work
I've been doing this kind of work for over fifty years now, and nothing in this strange and frightening world seems more pleasant to me.
achieve attempt upstairs
Only those who attempt the absurd...will achieve the impossible. I think...I think it's in my basement... Let me go upstairs and check.
catch certain enigma eye
There has to be a certain enigma in it, which does not immediately catch the eye
building possible untrained
At first I had no idea at all of the possibility of systematically building up my figures. I did not know ... this was possible for someone untrained in mathematics,
order repetition
Order is repetition of units.Chaos is multiplicity without rythm.
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.
children growing-up grows
I don't grow up. In me is the small child of my early days.
math artist training
By keenly confronting the enigmas that surround us, and by considering and analyzing the observations that I had made, I ended up in the domain of mathematics. Although I am absolutely without training in the exact sciences, I often seem to have more in common with mathematicians than with my fellow artists.
heart artist soul
I am a graphic artist heart and soul, though I find the term artist rather embarrassing.
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.'
beauty art brother
I never got a pass mark in math... Just imagine - mathematicians now use my prints to illustrate their books. Funny me consorting with all these learned folks, as though I were their long lost brother. I guess they are unaware of the fact that I am ignorant about the whole thing.