Mc Escher
Jillian Payne
Artist Research Paper
M.C. Escher: Balancing Chaos and Order before it was Popular
Maurits Corniel Escher was a magnificent artist who used symmetry and distortion to create mind-bending masterpieces. He was an artist before his time. Escher was not popular until the end of his life, and became famous after his death, as many artists do. He was fascinated by nature and the balances found in nature. He believed that everything was a form of controlled chaos; a world of checks and balances, and worked hard to portray it in his art. Maurits referred to himself as M.C., and as history shows, using his initials caught on to make him known as M.C. Escher. He was born in the Netherlands in 1898. The youngest of four children to an engineer, he showed no interest in becoming an engineer himself. After failing high school, his parents sent him to the School for Architecture and Decorative Arts in Haarlem, Norway. After only one week attending this school, he expressed his desire to study graphic art instead of architecture to his father. (MC Escher Foundation) His father was supportive, being happy that M.C. was interested in something, and was encouraged when M.C.’s teacher, Samuel Jessurun de Mesquita expressed many reassurances that M.C. was very talented and suited for this field of study after seeing some of M.C.’s linocuts.
It was at this school where M.C. became fascinated with the mathematics involved in art, and the Regular Division of the Plane. M.C. would break down patterns he saw in everyday life, distorting them only a little to find similarities in different things you would not easily put together. His woodcut, “Sky and Water I” is a perfect example, where he used both positive and negative shapes to show that fish and birds were the same type of creature, just living in different environments. (Frank) M.C. would play with these shapes more later on in life, which would ultimately be the key factor in his fame. He just hadn’t
Artist Research Paper
M.C. Escher: Balancing Chaos and Order before it was Popular
Maurits Corniel Escher was a magnificent artist who used symmetry and distortion to create mind-bending masterpieces. He was an artist before his time. Escher was not popular until the end of his life, and became famous after his death, as many artists do. He was fascinated by nature and the balances found in nature. He believed that everything was a form of controlled chaos; a world of checks and balances, and worked hard to portray it in his art. Maurits referred to himself as M.C., and as history shows, using his initials caught on to make him known as M.C. Escher. He was born in the Netherlands in 1898. The youngest of four children to an engineer, he showed no interest in becoming an engineer himself. After failing high school, his parents sent him to the School for Architecture and Decorative Arts in Haarlem, Norway. After only one week attending this school, he expressed his desire to study graphic art instead of architecture to his father. (MC Escher Foundation) His father was supportive, being happy that M.C. was interested in something, and was encouraged when M.C.’s teacher, Samuel Jessurun de Mesquita expressed many reassurances that M.C. was very talented and suited for this field of study after seeing some of M.C.’s linocuts.
It was at this school where M.C. became fascinated with the mathematics involved in art, and the Regular Division of the Plane. M.C. would break down patterns he saw in everyday life, distorting them only a little to find similarities in different things you would not easily put together. His woodcut, “Sky and Water I” is a perfect example, where he used both positive and negative shapes to show that fish and birds were the same type of creature, just living in different environments. (Frank) M.C. would play with these shapes more later on in life, which would ultimately be the key factor in his fame. He just hadn’t
Cited: Biography, Encyclopedia of World. "M.C. Escher." 2004. Encyclopedia. 18 February 2013. <http://www.encyclopedia.com/topic/M_C_Escher.aspx>. Frank, Patrick. Prebles ' Artforms. Tenth. Upper Saddle River: Pearson Education, 2011. Text book. Gold, Sylviane. "Art Review|New Brittain; Escher 's Journey To and From Reality." 26 September 2010. NY Times. News Article. 26 February 2013. <http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9D03EEDF1631F935A1575AC0A9669D8B63>. MC Escher Foundation. MC Escher: The Official Website. n.d. 20 February 2013. <http://www.mcescher.com/>.