Gagandeep Cheema

April 6, 2016

Math 101

M­W 11:40­1:05

M.C Escher

The project is about the famous Dutch graphic artist named M.C. Escher. He used many mathematical equations for his artwork. M.C Escher’s full name is Maurits Cornelis Escher. Maurits

Cornelis Escher is one of the world's most famous graphic artists. His artwork has been and enjoyed by millions of people all over the planet. Also his work has been also seen in many websites in the internet. He is most famous for his hardest sketches like , Relativity,

Metamorphosis I, II, III , and much more. Among every famous artists, M.C Escher is only left­handed.

He was born in June 17, 1898 in Leeuwarden, Netherlands. He was the fourth youngest son of a civil engineer of his father business. Later, than the family moved to Arnhem where Escher spent 5 years of his life in. He met his future wife Jetta Umiker in Ravello, Spain in 1923. On June 12, 1924 ,they were married and moved to Rome. They had three sons named Giorgio Arnaldo Escher, Arthur Escher, and Jan Escher. Then, M.C. moved his family to Switzerland and then to Belgium. He died at March 27, 2016 in Laren, New Holland, Netherlands. When he was a kid, his first artwork was a linoleum cut in purple of his father. He also started learning carpentry and piano. In his school, his grades was poor but not his drawing skills. His art teacher took an interest in his skill and started teaching him to make linocuts. He failed his final exam and thus never officially graduated. So he attended secondary school in Arnhem, Holland. In school, he was known as Mauk. He also began schooling at Technical College in Delft. Escher also attended the School for Architecture and Decorative Arts in Haarlem in 1924.

While he was there, he met someone that is very important to him. He met a graphic art teacher named S. Jessurun de Mesquita. He encouraged him to continue with his work on graphic arts so he can mentor him. He informed his father about this and he said he would rather study graphic art instead of architecture. So he had been showing his drawings and linoleum cuts to his teacher.

During his lifetime, he has made about 448 lithographs, woodcuts and wood engravings. He also made over 2000 drawings and sketches in his life as well. He also would use various lithographs, woodcuts and wood engravings in this sketches like the background in , the trees in Puddle,

"Pineta of Calvi", and much more . During World War II in Switzerland , he pursued his hobby of art by drawing 62 out of 137 sketches in his lifetime. He extended his passion for art, he would use some of his drawings for another hobby which is called carving beech wood spheres. He also use architecture, perspective and impossible spaces in his artwork. His artwork continues to impress millions of people all over the world. In his work, they recognize his great keen­eye observation of the world around us and the view of his own realities. He really shows us that reality in his artwork is wonderful, exciting, and fascinating. M.C. Escher also illustrated book, made tapestries, postage stamps, and murals. His work features many mathematical objects and operations like impossible objects, polyhedral, hyperbolic geometry, , and other skills he used in his art. His artwork has become very popular with scientists and mathematicians in culture. Many of his work can seen in cover of books and albums.M.C. Escher has inspired many artists to take his path of mathematic in art.

M.C Escher using his art skills and mathematical skills to make the greatest artworks in the world. He uses his keen eye observation to keep his artwork more precise and perfect. are used in variety of way. He used mathematics and art in many ways like drawings, architecture, sculpture, textiles, and much more. M.C. Escher focuses a lot on his time to make fantastic artworks with using his knowledge for mathematical equations and everything he learns in his life. He also sketched many insects in this drawings like ants, bees, grasshoppers, mantises and much more later in the future. In his early years , Escher travel a lot and sketched landscapes and nature all around the world. His early love of Roman and Italian landscapes and nature made him create an interest in which he uses in his buildup of mathematical designs in his artwork.

He also used geometries in his artwork. All of this sketches were inspired by everything that he has seen in nature and the environment in his travels. His artwork has a strong mathematical component and he drew many world that he built around impossible objects around the world. Although Escher did not have mathematical training in his life, but his understanding of it was largely visual and intuitive to his artwork.

M.C Escher was fascinated with the concept of math in his artwork. With all the formulas, shapes, and symbols in textbooks such as: Logarithms, “2logax + 3loga 4­logaz logax2 + loga43 – logaz

= loga x2y3/z”. Graphing exponential function f (x)=b^x also needs the use of logarithms. He used all these methods and more to make his art become one of the most intellectual works. From the way he calculated where each item in his sketches should be to where he has to shade dark and lighter. It’s amazing to think these two worlds so different from each other on the outside can work together to become a masterpiece.