Posters, reproductions of paintings by famous artists in high resolution, good quality, clipart and large-sized photographs for downloading. Brief biography of Escher Maurits

Maurice Cornelius Escher- (June 17, 1898, Leeuwarden, Netherlands - March 27, 1972, Laren, Netherlands) - "Although I am absolutely ignorant of the exact sciences, it sometimes seems to me that I am closer to mathematicians than to my fellow artists" - Dutch graphic artist . He is best known for his conceptual lithographs, wood and metal engravings, in which he masterfully explored the plastic aspects of the concepts of infinity and symmetry, as well as the peculiarities of the psychological perception of complex three-dimensional objects.

The plots of Escher’s “classical” works (“Drawing Hands”, “Metamorphoses”, “Day and Night”, “Reptiles”, “Meeting”, “House with Stairs”, etc.) are characterized by a witty understanding of logical and plastic paradoxes. Many of Escher's graphic and conceptual discoveries became among the symbols of the 20th century and were subsequently repeatedly reproduced or “quoted” by other artists. At the same time, Escher's works are emphatically classified as elite art.
In the process of work, the artist took ideas from mathematical articles that talked about the mosaic division of a plane, the projection of three-dimensional figures onto a plane, non-Euclidean geometry, “impossible figures”, the logic of three-dimensional space; it is believed that his work should be considered in the context of Einstein’s theory of relativity, Freud’s psychoanalysis, cubism and other achievements in the field of relationships between space, time and their identity.
Maurits Escher was one of the first to depict fractals in his mosaic paintings. During the XII World Mathematical Congress in Amsterdam in 1954, an exhibition of Escher's works was opened. A mathematical description of fractals was proposed only in the 1970s (the term "fractal" was introduced in 1975).
Maurice Escher himself, like many geniuses before and after him, stated: “All my works are games. Serious games." However, mathematicians around the world have been considering these games as absolutely serious ones for several decades now. material evidence ideas created using exclusively mathematical apparatus.
Escher's work had a huge influence on countless artists in different countries peace. Among them are Jos de Mey, Sandro del Pre, and Istvan Oros.
In 2002 in The Hague, in the former royal palace, previously used as showroom(Dutch: Het Paleis), the Escher Museum opened, displaying his most famous graphic works.
In 1968, 4 years before his death, Escher created a foundation The M. C. Escher Foundation in order to “preserve his legacy.” The M. C. Escher Foundation continues to organize exhibitions of the artist’s works, publish books and films about him and his works.

On December 11, in the main building of the MMSI on Petrovka, 25, as part of the Year of the Netherlands in Russia - 2013, a large-scale (more than 100 works) exhibition of Maurits Cornelius Escher opened

On December 11, in the main building of the MMSI on Petrovka, 25, as part of the Year of the Netherlands in Russia - 2013, a large-scale (more than 100 works) exhibition of Maurits Cornelius Escher opened. The work of this artist inspired many ideas of modern design and animation and, as a result, influenced the reality around us, largely created by these designers.

Maurits Cornelius Escher was born on June 17, 1898 in Leeuwarden, the capital of the province of Friesland in Holland. The third, youngest son of the hydraulic engineer G. A. Escher and his second wife, Sarah Glitschman (Escher's father had 2 more sons from his first marriage, so for him Maurits was the fifth child), Maurits from the very early childhood had the opportunity to develop his natural talents. And although studying was not easy for Maurits at all, no one forbade him to do what was interesting to him. So, from 1907, Maurits studied carpentry and playing the piano in small workshops in the city of Arnhem, where his family moved from Leewarden in 1903.

General education, apparently, was not on the list of priorities for the future artist, since he was never able to pass his final exams properly high school(where he studied from 1912 to 1918) and even, according to some sources, failed drawing. Although outside of school, art obviously took him quite seriously: for example, the 1916 linocut “Portrait of the Artist’s Father” is known, which 18-year-old Escher executed independently and at a quite decent level. In 1917, Escher visited the studio of the artist Gert Stiegemann, in which he first stood at the machine, of course, not realizing that one way or another he would stand at it all his life.

Following the will of his father, who wanted his son to have a diploma higher education and a decent profession, consonant, however, with the talents of his son, Maurits Escher in 1919 entered the architecture department of the School of Architecture and Ornament in Haarlem. However, nature took its toll, and a few months later he transferred to a graphic design class under the guidance of Samuel Geseran de Mesquite. Escher subsequently recalled that, “like most of his students, I was for a long time influenced by the powerful individuality of the artist.” One could even say that at the early stage of Escher’s work this influence was decisive for the formation of his artistic style.

However, Escher's art was formed not only and not so much under the influence of the academic school and the work of de Mesquite. Escher's family spent the summer of 1921 on the coast of the Italian Riviera, and unexpectedly for himself, the young artist found sources of inspiration in southern nature: Italian views fascinated Maurits - and he endlessly painted everything he saw around him.

Then, in 1921, inspired by new emotions and impressions, Escher began experimenting with a new woodcut - wood engraving. One of the series of such engravings, “Easter Flowers,” was even published in the magazine.

Italy impressed the artist so much that he returned there on his own after graduating from college in 1922. And in September of the same year, Escher first visited the Spanish Alhambra - a masterpiece of Moorish architecture. Struck by the beauty of the Alhambra’s decor, he noted its “colossal complexity and mathematical and artistic meaning.”

The 1920s - early 1930s in Escher's work were a time of numerous experiments. He works a lot and productively in print-production graphics, experimenting with both style and techniques: “...from 1922 to approximately 1935...I completed about seventy woodcuts (longitudinal and side) and more than forty lithographs.” Escher later wrote: “...many years of studying the techniques of graphic arts did me good; the craft became not only second nature to me, but also an absolute necessity during the transition to reproduction technology, opening up for me the opportunity to simultaneously communicate with the general public, which, in fact, is what I was striving for.”

Already in 1923, its first personal exhibition in Siena, and in 1924 - in The Hague. Also in 1924, Escher married Jetta (Jetta Umiker), whom he had met a year earlier in Italy. In general, Italy, with its mild climate, picturesque views and varied and complex architecture, for a long time became a home for the artist. Here he lived and worked, here his eldest sons were born. In 1926 Georg was born, in 1928 Arthur appeared. Motifs of Italian landscape and architecture appeared time after time on the sheets of his works. Escher worked on ornamentation, performed illustrations for various publications, and different types commercial graphics. However, his real creative interest lay in a completely different area. Ever since his studies, and the further, the more Escher was captivated by the idea of ​​going beyond the boundaries: beyond the boundaries of life - the theme of death, beyond the boundaries of familiar concepts - mystical and surreal motifs, beyond the boundaries real space- various optical and spatial effects.

His works, filled with optical illusions, are so fascinatingly unusual and clearly ahead of their time (the term op art- from opticalart- appeared about thirty years later), quickly gained enormous popularity. One after another, exhibitions were held in Italy; in 1929 alone, five of his personal exhibitions were held in Holland and Switzerland; opened permanent exhibition in one of the museums in Holland.

Until 1935, he traveled a lot: he traveled through Europe, once again visited Spain, made a trip to Tunisia; he was mainly interested in arabesques, local traditional ornaments and patterns, architecture. In 1935, despite Mussolini's former favor, living in Italy, where the fascists were increasingly gaining strength, became dangerous; Escher was forced to move to neutral Switzerland, where the life and well-being of the family were practically guaranteed. This event not only turned out to be important for Escher, the father of the family, but also became a turning point in the development of Escher the artist.

After sun-drenched Italy, the nature and architecture of the northern countries did not inspire him at all, and he again turned to ideas gleaned while studying Italian architecture and Moorish ornaments. Initially quite simple, in Escher’s new works they, thoughtful and calculated, were embodied in complex compositions, detailed diagrams. Thus, from op art Escher moved on to imp-artu(from impossibleart- depiction of spatial figures and objects impossible from the point of view of geometry, optical illusions) and from a specific plot - to often abstract or surreal motifs.

There is a legend that he once showed one of his abstract works to his brother Beer, a geology professor who was working on the problem of designing and growing crystals. The brother was so impressed by the complexity of the design, composition and perfection of the symmetry of the design that he decided to use his ideas in crystallography. (On this, by the way, the connection between M. Escher’s work and the world of science did not end: in 1959, the artist spoke at the International Congress of Crystallography in England with a report on the topic of symmetry, and in 1965 the book “Aspects of Symmetry in the Work of M. K. . Escher".)

The move to Switzerland and the proximity of the war did not make Escher a homebody. Already in 1936 he again went to Spain. The complexity of the Alhambra’s ornaments and patterns haunted the artist for a long time, and he again plunged into studying and copying Moorish tiles. Escher was one of the first to transfer the technique of correct periodic division of planes into proportional parts, used for centuries for applied purposes - to construct ornaments and patterns, into graphics and create independent images reminiscent of complex mosaic symmetrical pictures of a kaleidoscope, practically anticipating in them the idea of ​​fractals.

By 1938, when his third son, Ian, was born, Escher concentrated almost entirely on solving complex compositional problems. Moreover, he complicated his compositions, using the most simplified figures as ornamental elements. real world. This is how the motif of two birds flying towards each other - black and white (in general, they could be of any two contrasting colors) arose. This plot formed the basis of it famous work"Day and Night", and later the birds were transformed into fish in the work "Sky and Water" (1938).

In 1941, Escher and his family moved to his homeland, Holland, and from that time on, the artist’s life became more settled. Immersed in solving spatial problems and logical constructions, he no longer needed an inspiring nature to the same extent as before.

In the 1940s, volume emerged in Escher's work. Two-dimensional space, studied and conquered, became no longer so interesting to him, and the contradiction between plane and space began to occupy him much more. Escher pushes the boundaries again. Now these are the boundaries of the sheet plane. His drawings now invade our world volumetrically, competing in their realism with objects of real space. The symmetry of his works is now complemented and complicated by the sphericity of space. The sphere as a geometric figure and the sphericity of space as a technique become the most important elements of his compositions; It was during this period that one of his most famous works, “Drawing Hands” (1948), appeared.

In 1948, Escher began lecturing on the symmetry and complex space of his work, and by 1950 his talks were being taken quite seriously not only by the public, but also by the scientific community. In the same 1950, Escher’s first personal exhibition in the USA was successfully held.

In his work, the 1950s is a time when the three-dimensional elements of his work take on perspective. The artist uses perspective reduction of figures, achieving the effect of “going to infinity” - reduction to a point. The first work in which this technique was used was called “Less and Less” (1956). It is interesting that before 1958, objects in Escher’s works become smaller as they approach the center of the picture, and after 1958, on the contrary, as they move away from it. Since 1956, Escher has used this technique in almost every one of his works, including the sheets from the last Serpents series, which he worked on in 1969.

Escher worked until the very end of his life, although his last decade required courage and exertion of all his strength. In 1964, he decided to visit his son living in the USA, but during the trip he fell ill and was forced to return from the road. Over the next 8 years, Escher underwent several major operations with varying degrees of success; during periods of improvement it worked. However, in March 1972, the condition of the 73-year-old artist deteriorated sharply, and on March 27, 1972, Maurits Cornelius Escher died.

Escher is a rare example of an artist who during his lifetime had professional recognition both among “physicists” - the scientific mathematical community, and among “lyricists” - in the art world. And our time, when design decisions are increasingly less likely to do without digital technologies, has apparently created ideal conditions for the perception, understanding and appreciation of the work of this extraordinary artist.

His works invariably fascinate and interest both the public and specialists - art critics, gallery owners, etc. And the number of Escher’s graphics at exhibitions, museums and galleries is quite commensurate with its quantity on the art market. Escher's works have been put up for public auction a little over a thousand times, and the most good results were shown in the last ten years, from 2002 to 2012.

Greatest success the Metamorphosis series (1939–1940) is on the market. Each sheet in them is an engraving measuring 20-30 by 400 cm (there are even works almost seven meters long), which depicts a single, inextricable series of changing, flowing into each other organic and geometric (living and inanimate) forms, located in a certain clear rhythm .

All three are the most expensive work Escher belong to the same series "Metamorphosis II". The record sale was recorded on October 2, 2008, when at Sotheby’s (London) a 1940 sheet was sold for £115,000 (with an estimate of £40,000–60,000). The following results are more modest: 100,000 euros for a sheet dated from October 1939 to March 1940, at Sotheby’s (Amsterdam) on December 13, 2010 and 90,000 for a sheet of 1939 at auction auction house Ketterer Kunst (Munich) June 4, 2008.

Escher frequent guest auction catalogs this year too: in the last 30 days alone, from November 17 to December 17, 11 of his works appeared at auction, most of which were sold.

Maria Kuznetsova,A.I.

Maurits Escher is an outstanding Dutch graphic artist known throughout the world for his works. In the center, in the museum, opened in 2002, and named after him "Escher in het Paleis", a permanent exhibition of 130 works by the master is open. Would you say that graphics are boring? Perhaps... perhaps this can be said about the works of graphic artists, but not about Escher. The artist is known for his unusual vision of the world and playing with the logic of space.

Fantastic engravings by Escher, in literally, can be perceived as graphic image theory of relativity. Works depicting impossible figures and the transformations are literally mesmerizing, they are unlike anything else.

Maurits Escher was a true master of puzzles and his optical illusions show something that doesn't really exist. In his paintings everything changes, smoothly flows from one form to another, staircases have no beginning or end, and water flows upward. Someone will exclaim - this cannot be! See for yourself.
The famous painting “Day and Night”

“Ascent and descent”, where people are always walking up the stairs... or down?

“Reptiles” - here alligators turn from drawn ones into three-dimensional ones...

“Drawing hands” - in which two hands draw each other.

"Meeting"

“Hand with reflective ball”

The main pearl of the museum is Escher’s 7-meter-high work “Metamorphoses”. This engraving allows you to experience the connection between eternity and infinity, where time and space come together into one.

The museum is located in the former Winter Palace Queen Emma - great-grandmother of the current reigning Queen Beatrix. Emma bought the palace in 1896 and lived in it until her death in May 1934. In two halls of the museum, which are called the “Royal Rooms,” furniture and photographs of Queen Emma have been preserved, and on the curtains there is information about the interior of the palace of those times.

On the top floor of the museum there is an interactive exhibition “Look Like Escher”. This is real Magic world illusions. In the magic ball, worlds appear and disappear, walls move and change, and children appear taller than their parents. A little further there is an unusual floor that optically collapses under every step, and in the silver ball you can see yourself through Escher’s eyes.

In the section “Icons of the Era” we talk about artists, designers, directors, musicians and other creative professionals who managed to create recognizable style and influence modern culture. Our hero this week is graphic artist Maurits Cornelis Escher, author of the famous “Relativity” and other works with optical illusions. The Escher exhibition is open at the Moscow MMOMA until February 9, 2014.

Maurits
Cornelis Escher

(Maurits Cornelis Escher)

1898-1972, Netherlands

graphic artist

Early years and studies in Haarlem

Maurits Cornelis Escher was born in 1898 in the Dutch city of Leeuwarden. He was youngest son in a large family of an engineer. In 1904 future artist, his brothers and parents moved to Arnhem, where the boy studied carpentry and music, but quickly dropped out due to health problems. After graduating from high school in 1918, Escher entered the Delft University of Technology, but was expelled again - due to poor health, he could not cope with assignments. However, he then began studying architecture in Haarlem and successfully graduated in 1922. In addition, in his youth Escher was interested in literature and tried his hand at literature.

From the very beginning of his studies in Haarlem, Escher realized that he wanted to draw much more than design. He showed his graphic works to teacher Samuel Yessurun de Mesquita, who supported the decision young artist. By that time de Mesquita was already famous graphic artist: His lithographs, woodcuts and etchings greatly influenced Escher's work. The artist was friends with his teacher until de Mesquita's death - in 1944 he was captured by the Nazis and died in Auschwitz.

Life in Italy

After finishing his studies, in 1922 Escher went on a trip to Spain and Italy. During the traditional grand tour for artists, Escher first visited the Alhambra, a palace in Granada built during the Muslim rule in Spain. The Muslim patterns and mosaics that decorate the Alhambra greatly influenced Escher's work: he more than once used the techniques of Islamic artists to create his works.

Mosaics in the Alhambra that inspired Escher

In 1924, Escher and his wife Jetta Umiker settled in Rome. He spent eleven years in Italy, and every year the artist traveled around the country, sketching landscapes and architecture. He then used these sketches to create his lithographs and woodcuts. For example, the background of the lithograph Waterfall, created in 1961, depicts the terraces that Escher painted in Italy. In addition to sketches, there are also completed graphic works made by the artist during his life in Italy: for example, the lithographs “Castrovalva” of 1930 and “Atrani” of 1931. Both works depict places that Escher visited during his travels.

Impossible figures

While still at the Alhambra, Escher became interested in the principle of tessellation - a technique that makes it possible to divide a plane into parts that completely cover it without intersecting or overlapping each other. Having become interested in mathematics, Escher studied the work of the Hungarian scientist György Pólya on tessellation symmetry groups and began creating works based on this research. However, Escher came up with ornaments that did not consist of geometric shapes, and from insects, birds, fish, dogs, crabs, horses and other living creatures. These graphic works were included in the “Regular Division of the Plane” series, which was then published as a separate book in 1958 - however, Escher was so interested in the principle of tessellation that he continued this series until the end of the 1960s and created 137 works.

"Relativity", 1953

However, Escher's "impossible figures" became the most famous. He explored the paradoxes that arise when depicting three-dimensional space and made drawings of interiors and architectural structures, which, at first glance, seem correct, but upon careful study of the work, the viewer notices contradictory elements connecting the parts of a particular figure. One of the most famous works Escher's depiction of "impossible" space is the 1953 lithograph Relativity, which depicts a world that defies the laws of gravity.

Confession

The first exhibition of Escher's works took place in The Hague in 1924, and two years later this exhibition was shown in Rome. Even then, critics called Escher a talented draftsman, but many criticized his work as “too intellectual.” In 1934, the artist's works were shown at the World's Fair in Chicago and were also positively assessed by critics and collectors.

Lithograph “Drawing Hands”, 1948

However real success came to Escher in the 1950s, after his large exhibitions took place in the USA and the Netherlands. In the artist’s homeland, his works were presented at the Stedelijk, the main museum of contemporary art in Amsterdam. He began to lecture all over the world, and often spoke at technical educational institutions- for example, at MIT, as he often collaborated with scientists.

Timeline

Escher enters the school of architecture and applied arts in Haarlem

After graduating from school, he goes on a trip to Italy and Spain. Begins to create his first works

Marries and starts living in Rome

Leaves Italy due to the fascist regime, settles in Switzerland

Moves from Switzerland to Brussels. Makes the first woodcut “Still Life and Street” in the genre of “impossible reality”

Moves to Barn (Netherlands), where the German occupation spends its time

Lithograph “Drawing Hands”

First solo exhibition in the USA

Starts teaching

Creates the lithograph "Relativity"

Personal exhibition at the Stedelijk Museum

Awarded the Order of Orange-Nassau - an award given by the monarch of the Netherlands for special services to the state

(although he had no specialized education), collaborated with scientists and often illustrated complex mathematical theories. In 1952, mathematician and Princeton University professor Hermann Weyl used Escher's work "Symmetry" to design the cover of his book, and physicist Yang Zhenning illustrated his hypothesis about the application of symmetry laws to quantum physics with "Horses". In addition, Escher's works sometimes inspired scientists: for example, the artist's sketches helped his brother, geologist Berend Escher, make a discovery in the field of crystallography.

Relativity built from LEGO

Popular culture

Escher's first exhibition in the United States opened in 1950, and after that the artist quickly became popular - his Washington dealer sold 150 prints of Escher's work by the mid-1950s. However, he became known to the general public in the 1960s: then inexpensive posters with his psychedelic works were bought by hippies, who then decorated the walls of their homes with them. Copies of the lithograph “Relativity” were especially popular - since the 1960s, it has appeared in the media, movies, TV series, and this year a three-dimensional model of the interior depicted by Escher was made from a LEGO set. Another recent example: in the movie Inception, the main characters walk along an endless staircase, reminiscent of the one drawn by the famous graph.

Escher Maurits Cornelis born June 17, 1898 in the city of Leeuwarden, which is located in the Netherlands. The times were interesting and during his life Escher had to survive two world wars, as well as the death of his teacher in a concentration camp.

Self-portrait of Escher Maurits Cornelis

Childhood

Cornelis liked to draw since childhood, however, this did not greatly affect his success at school. Maurits failed his final exams (typically, even a drawing exam) and was never able to obtain a matriculation certificate. Nevertheless, Escher managed to obtain a deferment from the army and after an unsuccessful attempt to study at the Delft Technical School (from where he was expelled due to constant debts due to poor health), he entered the School of Architecture and decorative arts in Haarlem. There, Samuel de Mesquita, a Jew by nationality, the same one who was tortured to death in Auschwitz in 1944, becomes his mentor and friend.

Mature years

Having successfully finished school, Escher goes to travel around Italy. Since 1923 he has lived and worked in Rome. During his next journey, Maurits meets his future wife Jetta Umiker, daughter of a Swiss bourgeois. In 1926, their first son was born. Escher is getting pretty happy by then. popular artist, however, the money received from the sale lithographs lacks. Therefore, Asher sits on the daddy’s neck for some time.

In 1935, due to another exacerbation of fascist insanity in Italy, Escher and his family moved to Switzerland. However, soon, tired of the rural splendor of a small but proud mountainous country, the family moves to Brussels, where they remain until the start of the Great Patriotic War.

Soon, Escher changed his preferences from painting landscapes (who would have thought Escher was a landscape painter) to displaying various impossible geometric shapes and spatial puzzles for which he is now famous.

In 1939-1940, the artist’s parents died.

From 1941 until his death, Escher and his family lived in the Netherlands. In the post-war period, the long-awaited worldwide fame came to the artist. Articles about his works are published in reputable European and American publications. Lithographs by Maurits are sold successfully, the artist gives many lectures about his work, etc. etc. In general, by the age of 50, he finally gets all the goodies that he always wanted to get in his youth.

Memento mori

IN last years Escher's health fails him and he practically does not work. The master undergoes many operations and eventually dies in the hospital from intestinal cancer. Escher left behind his wonderful lithographs, paintings, drawings and three sons.

Paintings, graphics, lithographs by Escher Maurits Cornelis

IN Escher's paintings The artist's passion for geometry is clearly visible. It was not for nothing that Escher said that he felt closer to mathematicians than to his fellow artists. Although, he understood mathematics a little less than nothing. This is also according to the mayor, I’m not making anything up. But it is not exactly. Cornelius's understanding of geometry was rather intuitive and artistic. This is the paradox of an artistic understanding of mathematics. All this, however, does not detract from the mathematical nature of Escher graphics.

Escher graphics contains many spatial and plastic contradictions. The artist masterfully makes the convolutions become entangled, just like the stairs in his paintings become entangled. Optical illusions and impossible figures capture attention and lead to a state of cognitive dissonance.

Escher had a gigantic influence on modern Art. Similar artistic techniques found in many paintings contemporary artists, such as Oleg Shuplyak, and others. On this moment, there is even a whole direction in painting (imp art) that uses optical illusions, impossible figures and features of visual perception. However paintings, drawings and lithographs by Escher Maurits Cornelis and to this day remain one of the brightest and most unusual. Yandex and Google, have you noticed the nausea of ​​the text? I hope it's not too much? Just don't have a filter, no, noooo. Sorry for lyrical digression. I love verbiage, what can I do?