The artist M.C. Escher - Research Paper Example

Artist M.C. Escher Maurits Escher was a Dutch graphic artist and his main work was printmaking. He was born in Holland and his father was acivil engineer. His inspiration to be an architect made him enrolled in the school of architecture in Haarlem. While studying, his interested shifted to drawing and printing work. He became famous from creating mathematically challenging artwork. The tools he used in his drawings were simple, and naked eyes, however he managed to create stunning mathematical work.

He mainly focused on division of plane and played around with spaces that seemed to be impossible. In some of his works, he created polytypes that cannot be constructed in real world and can be explained using mathematics knowledge.His study on mathematics began with George Polya’s academic paper about plane symmetry groups. What he studied inspired him to study the concept of 17 wallpapers (Math Explorer Club, 2009). By using this mathematical concept, he manage to create a periodic tilings made up of 43 colored drawings of different types of symmetry.

This was the point where he started developing mathematical approach to expressions of symmetry shapes in his drawings. He was being viewed as a research mathematician during that time when he documented his findings in a book wrote about asymmetry polygons. He researched about color based division and he came up with a system of classifying combinations of shape, color and symmetrical properties (Math Explorer Club, 2009). He also developed several interlocking figures that appear to be mathematically incorrect.

With the use of black and white color, he manages to develop different dimensions to make the impossible mathematics look possible. He normally combines 2 and 3 dimensional images to a single print. In his works entitled ‘reptiles’ he drew pictures where reptiles come out of tessellation, move around, and go back into 2 dimensional forms. To create certain linear perspectives, he picked a point on the drawings such that all the lines in the work will converge together at one point. In this way, he used mathematics to develop a certain perception from the audience, without using any special mathematic tool.

Escher circle limit III contains tessellations that he drew with a free hand and they are mathematically correct (Abrams, 1995). In 1956, he analyzed the concept of representing infinity on 2 dimensional planes. His wood carvings circle limit I-IV shows the infinity concept. In 1959, he explained further about infinity using his construction (Abrams, 1995). The figure he used to construct his pictures were subjected to constant reduction in size, he worked from edges to the center, that is the point where the limit is arrived at of the infinity many and infinity small.

In geometry, he created 4 patterns by use of hyperbolic geometry, circle limit I, II, III, and IV (Abrams, 1995). In every model, it is a choice of underlying space, together with a choice of how geometrical concept can be represented for example points and lines in the provided space. In the mathematical concept of Tessellasations, his drawing on periodic drawing division is among the famous drawings. In his drawings, he covered the whole space with figures. The detail developed drawing was the woodcut with Eight Heads of 1922.

In the drawing, 8 different heads are shown, 4 are right up while another four are upside down. Eight Heads drawing (Abrams, 1995)ReferencesMath Explorer Club. M.C. Escher and Hyperbolic Geometry. Accessed on 4/15/14 from http://www.math.cornell.edu/~mec/Winter2009/Mihai/ Abrams. (1995). The M. C. Escher Sticker Book. Harry N. AbramsErnst, Bruno. (1978). The Magic Mirror of M.C. Escher, Taschen, p. 15Hofstadter, Douglas R. (1999). Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid, Basic Books