Maurits Corneille Escher

From The Academic American Encyclopædia

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Escher, M. C.

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The Dutch graphic artist Maurits Cornelis Escher, b. June 17, 1898, d. Mar. 27, 1972, explored a strange world of optical illusion, visual puns, and distorted perspectives in his work. He dealt with the theme of metamorphosis and change in such prints as Verbum (1942) and Metamorphosis (1939-40), which portray a gradual transformation of one shape into another. Escher created a visual paradox in the lithograph Relativity (1953) by combining three separate perspectives into a unified, coherent whole. His work has become increasingly popular because of its unique combination of humor, logic, and meticulous precision with visual trickery.

Biblio.
Bibliography: Ernst, Bruno, The Magic Mirror of M. C. Escher, trans. by John E. Brigham (1976; repr. 1987); Escher, M. C., The Graphic Work of M. C. Escher (1967) and Escher on Escher, trans. by K. Ford (1989); Hofstadter, Douglas, Godel, Escher, Bach (1979); Locher, J. L., ed., The World of M. C. Escher (rev. ed. 1988).


Christopher Hogan (email: chogan@cs.cmu.edu finger: chogan@cs.cmu.edu)

Last updated Thu Oct 16 08:33:30 EDT 1997