MC Escher: Ambiguous or Phenominal?

Maurits Cornelius Escher, a Dutch artist was born in the Netherlands at Leeuwarden on June 17, 1898. As a child, Escher always had an intensely creative side and an ‘acute sense of wonder' . He often claimed to see shapes that he could relate to in the clouds. In school, Escher failed to shine in many of his subjects, but exhibited an early interest in both music and carpentry. Escher, however, developed a deep interest in printing techniques as a result of receiving good reports from respective art departments that had encouraged him to experiment.

Family aspirations that Escher would train as an architect were disappointed when he failed his final exams in history, constitutional organizations, political economies and book keeping, and as a result he never officially g

Like Escher, our curiosity perpetuates differences in perception, and the more you delve into a concept the more your understanding is developed. Understanding how humans perceive the arts and themselves is a difficult task to accomplish, as we are all unique individuals. Therefore there is an ambiguous perception to Escher’s work; and inherent donning of ambiguous depth perception, a view of depth on many differing planes.

This is the richest source of inspiration that I have ever struck; nor has it yet dried up. The symmetry drawings…show how a surface can be regularly divided, or filled up with, similar-shaped figures which are contiguous to one another, without leaving any open spaces. The Moors were past masters of this. The decorated walls and floors, particularly in the Alhambra in Spain, by placing congruent, multi-colored pieces of majolica together without leaving any spaces between. What a pity it is that Islam did not permit them to make “graven images.” They always restricted themselves, in their massed tiles, to designs of an abstract geometrical type. Not one single Moorish artist, to the best of my knowledge, ever made so bold (or maybe the idea never occurred to him) as to use concrete, recognizable, naturalistically conceived figures of fish, birds, reptiles, or human beings as elements in their surface coverage. This restriction is all the more unacceptable to me in that the recognizably of the components of my own designs is the reason for my unfailing interest in this sphere. (Escher, 1971)

The works of M.C. Escher can be viewed in many different ways, much of his work can be viewed not only in one direction, but if you change the direction in which you view his pieces, a whole new aspect of the work appears. It is for this reason that Escher’s works often times have been labeled ambiguous. Ambiguous is simply having more than one meaning or way of looking at something. In most of his pieces, Escher has made the viewer feel somewhat confused about what they are seeing. Escher had experimented with many methods of illusion to manipulate his work; most, if not all, of his work is done very mathematically. The placement of every line, shape or form is done in such a way that each piece has a specific angle and placement. In many of the mirror images he produced, the object used to mirror the image was also drawn in showing the viewers that not only could he duplicate the objects mirrored but the entire setting. In this way the viewer can get a sense of perspective or viewpoint.

Some topics in this essay:
MC Escher, Alhambra Spain, Roman Italian, Acorn Media, Leeuwarden June, De Mesquita, Congruent Polygons, School Delft, Arthur Jan, , regular division, printing techniques, acorn media, regular division plane, division plane, birds bees fish, italian landscapes, encouraged experiment, escher moved, mc escher, de mesquita, richest source inspiration, drawn unusual perspectives, ambiguous depth,