June Greats

Ascending and Descending, 1960

As some of you may know I am fascinated by the surreal and the imaginary world of art. One of the artists I admire is the Dutch graphic artist, Maurits Cornelis Escher.

As it happens, MC Escher was born 126 years ago in June 1898.

MC Escher is a master of the impossible and the unexpected. Escher's work is predominantly mathematical and revolves around architecture, geometry, perspective, reflections, animations of abstract concepts, and impossible spaces.  Despite his universal appeal, Escher was never fully embraced by the official art world. Instead, his fame came from the hippy counterculture of the 1960s, who considered him to be a pioneer of psychedelic art. But Escher was a man who belonged to no movement and had no interest in being associated with any.

Escher is often referred to as the “father of modern tessellations” because he commonly used geometric grids to form intricate interlocking designs. This technique of tessellations of the plane appears regularly in his work.

Another of Escher's fascinations was the animation of abstract concepts. In his piece, Reptiles, the lizards come to life as they crawl out of the artist's depiction of a drawing, only to return to it. Escher wrote of this print, "Evidently one of the reptiles became tired of lying flat and rigid amongst his fellows, so he puts one plastic-looking leg over the edge and wrenches himself free...."

Escher's work is full of surprises, and his imagination knows no bounds. Escher is probably most famous for his impossible drawings, such as the mesmerizing Ascending and Descending, and Relativity.

The Ascending and Descending is potentially Escher's most thought-provoking piece. The two ranks of human figures trudge forever upwards and eternally downwards on an impossible four-sided eternal staircase. The futility of their task is perfected by the two figures that are not on the eternal staircase. One gazes up at his condemned fellows from a side terrace; one sits glumly on the lower stairs. “Two recalcitrant individuals refuse, for the time being, to take any part in this exercise,” Escher commented. “They have no use for it at all but no doubt sooner or later they will be brought to see the error of their nonconformity.” His thoughts about this piece tell me that Escher was a kind of existentialist, not a surrealist.

Let's celebrate the power of imagination and the endless possibilities that lie within us. We can use our creativity to challenge the status quo, to think outside the box, and to create something truly extraordinary, like MC Escher continued doing all his life.

I am intrigued by the art of tessellations and I have tried to replicate Escher's lizards. The creation of the repetitions of the geometric patterns gives me a sense of order in the current chaotic world.

It is worth trying, and I invite you to take a look at my results.