Craft one of the most original artists of our time into 3D!

Intricate patterns, elegant geometries, and mind-boggling graphics are trademarks of the magical visual world of Dutch artist M.C. Escher (1898-1972).  

Mysterious and mathematical at once, his work has captivated scientists, scholars, and popular culture, inspiring book covers, album art, films, posters, and puzzles.

Twisted Mind. The graphic pattern genius of M.C. Escher

From impossible staircases to tesselated birds, Dutch artist M.C. Escher (1898–1972) crafted a unique graphic language of patterns, puzzles, and mathematics. Dense, complex, and structured by intricate principles, his work is at the same time decorative and playful, toying constantly with optic illusions and the limitations of sensory perception. For mathematicians and scientists, Escher is a mastermind. For hippies, he was the pioneer of psychedelic art.

Born in Leeuwarden, in the Netherlands in 1898, Escher’s early works focused on nature and landscapes, with regular exhibitions in Holland, and some international recognition. It was on a trip to the Alhambra Palace in Spain in the 1920s, however, that Escher found his niche. Sketching the patterns of the palace’s Moorish architecture, Escher became captivated by the codependency of forms within and next to each other.

Working mainly with lithographs and woodcuts, Escher went on to explore the relationships among shapes, figures, and space with a near-obsessive delight. He revelled in quirky vantage points, multiple perspectives, the transition from paper flatness to illusory volume, and intricate mathematical puzzles such as the Möbius strip, a seemingly infinite loop which twists and recoils on itself in a contortion of apparent physical impossibility.

This introductory book from TASCHEN Basic Art 2.0 taps into Escher’s brilliant mind with key works from his restless investigation of image and perception. Along the way, you’ll find fish morphing into birds, lizards crawling off the page, masterful reflections, infinite mazes, and some of the most mind-bending images of 20th-century art.

About the series

Each book in TASCHEN’s Basic Art series features:

 - a detailed chronological summary of the life and oeuvre of the artist, covering his or her cultural and historical importance
 - a concise biography
 - approximately 100 illustrations with explanatory captions

Here, at last, is a book that does justice to this powerfully original artist’s visual invention. As beautiful and rigorous as an Escher work itself, The Magic of M. C. Escher is the classic study of a great artist.

For Escher, the skin of the visible world could be cut, folded, shaped and rearranged in marvellous ways. A superb draughtsman, Escher set himself the challenge of portraying otherworldly transformations of space within the borders of a sheet of paper. The resulting images, combining fantasy with explorations of geometry, have become the favourite artworks of tens of thousands of people around the world.

Escher’s works – from the great master prints to numerous drawings, accompanied by his eloquent words – are brilliantly arranged to form a cinematic journey of discovery. The destination is the magical world of the artist’s mind, an uncharted realm lush with exotic conceptions and inventions.

Illusions in Your Hands. Craft M.C. Escher’s visual riddles in 3D!

Mysterious and mathematical at once, the magical visual world of Dutch artist M.C. Escher (1898–1972) has captivated scientists and scholars and made its mark on popular culture, inspiring book covers, album art, films, posters, and puzzles.

This set puts Escher’s tessellated wonders right at your fingertips with 17 easy-to-assemble paper sculptures. Folding along the score lines, you can transform the artist’s richly geometric designs into three-dimensional polyhedra with forming and reforming patterns, including genius arrangements of flowers, butterflies, lizards, and seashells. The book includes a review of the geometric principles and artistic invention underlying Escher’s optical marvels as well as concise instructions.

The authors:

Wallace G. Walker spent most of his career as an independent artist residing in New York City. He was a graduate of Cranbrook Academy of Art, Bloomfield Hills, Michigan and the inventor of IsoAxis®. He worked for I.M. Pei and Partners and taught at both Parsons School of Design and the New York Institute of Technology. He had numerous shows and exhibits in cities across the USA. He returned to his hometown of Shreveport, Louisiana in 1989 and continued his artistic activities until his death in 2003.

Doris Schattschneider is Professor Emerita of Mathematics at Moravian College in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, where she taught for 34 years. Her dual interest in geometry and art led naturally to the study of M.C. Escher’s work. Active as a teacher, lecturer, editor, and writer, she has published widely on Escher’s work. Her book M.C. Escher: Visions of Symmetry gives a complete account of Escher’s symmetry work, and includes color photographs of all 150 of Escher’s symmetry drawings.

Impossible Illusions. The enigmatic works of M.C. Escher

Long before the first computer-generated 3-D images, M.C. Escher was a master of the third dimension. His impossible geometry and illusions, bordering between the scientific and psychological, are a homage to the possibilities of the human mind. This collection presents the artist’s key graphic works and illustrations in stunning full-page reproductions, complete with detailed explanations of each mathematical problem.

“A woman once rang me up and said, ‘Mr. Escher, I am absolutely crazy about your work. In your print Reptiles, you have given such a striking illustration of reincarnation.’ I replied, ‘Madame, if that’s the way you see it, so be it.’” A fittingly sly comment from renowned Dutch graphic artist Maurits Cornelis Escher (1898–1972), whose complex and ambiguous drawings continue to leave hasty interpretations far behind.

Long before the first computer-generated 3-D images, Escher was a master of the third dimension. His lithograph Magic Mirror dates as far back as 1946. By taking such a title for the book, mathematician Bruno Ernst stressed the enrapturing spell Escher’s work invariably casts on those who see it. Ernst visited Escher every week for a year, systematically talking through his entire oeuvre with him. Their discussions resulted in a friendship that gave Ernst intimate access to the life and conceptual world of Escher. Ernst’s account was meticulously scrutinized and made accurate by the artist himself.

Escher’s work refuses to be pigeonholed. Scientific, psychological, or aesthetic criteria alone cannot do it justice. The questions remain: Why did he create the pictures? How did he construct them? What preliminary studies were necessary before achieving the final version? And how are his various creations interrelated? This book, complete with biographical data, 250 illustrations, and a thorough breaking-down of each mathematical problem offers answers to these and many other lingering mysteries and is an authentic source text of the first order.

M.C. Escher was born in 1898 in Leeuwarden (Netherlands). He received his first drawing lessons during secondary school from F.W. van der Haagen, who also taught him the block printing, thus fostering Escher's innate graphic talents.

From 1912 to 1922 he studied at the School of Architecture and Ornamental Design in Haarlem, where he was instructed in graphic techniques by S. Jessurun de Mesquita, who greatly influenced Escher's further artistic development. Between 1922 and 1934 the artist lived and worked in Italy. Afterwards, Escher spent two years in Switzerland and five in Brussels before finally moving back to Barn in Holland, where he died in 1972.

M.C. Escher is not a surrealist drawing us into his dream world, but an architect of perfectly impossible worlds who presents the structurally unthinkable as though it were a law of nature. The resulting dimensional and perspectival illusions bring us into confrontation with the limitations of our sensory perception.

Ни один художник не старался столь усердно, как Мауриц Корнелис Эшер, передать свои впечатления. Для него оболочка видимого мира была лишь кусочком ткани, которую можно самым чудесным образом резать, складывать, придавать ей любую форму. Рисовальщик, не знавший себе равных, он запечатлел эти странные преобразования пространства на листе бумаги, создав произведения, приводившие в восторг тысячи зрителей во всем мире.

Этот глубоко самобытный мастер давно заслуживал, чтобы ему посвятили монографию, воздающую должное его творчеству. Отныне это свершившийся факт.Произведения Эшера, как наиболее известные гравюры, так и неведомые ранее многочисленные рисунки, представлены здесь и прокомментированы его собственными словами.

Эта книга знакомит нас с миром художника - неизученным царством, выходящим за рамки экзотических концепций и выдумок.

Столь же прекрасная и строгая, как и творчество Эшера, книга "Магия М .К. Эшера" обладает всеми достоинствами, чтобы стать составной частью классических исследований, посвященных этому великому художнику.

The author deals with one powerful motif in Escher's work - the puzzlelike interlocking of birds, fish and other natural forms in continuous patterns. His methods are examined through a meticulous analysis of his notebooks and an epilogue reveals new information about Escher's inspiration.

"A woman once rang me up and said, 'Mr. Escher, I am absolutely crazy about your work. In your print Reptiles, you have given such a striking illustration of reincarnation.' I replied, ‘Madame, if that`s the way you see it, so be it.`" An engagingly sly comment by the renowned Dutch graphic artist Maurits Cornelis Escher (1898–1972) - the complex ambiguities of whose work leave hasty or single-minded interpretations far behind. Long before the first computer-generated 3-D images were thrilling the public, Escher was a master of the third dimension. His lithograph "Magic Mirror" dates as far back as 1946. In taking that title for this book, mathematician Bruno Ernst is stressing the magic spell Escher`s work invariably casts on those who see it. Ernst visited Escher every week for a year, systematically talking through his entire œuvre with him. Their discussions resulted in a friendship that gave Ernst intimate access to the life and conceptual world of Escher. Ernst`s account was meticulously scrutinized and made accurate by the artist himself.

Escher`s work refuses to be pigeonholed. Scientific, psychological, or aesthetic criteria alone cannot do it justice. The questions remain. Why did he create the pictures? How did he construct them? What preliminary studies were necessary before he could arrive at the final version? And how are the various images Escher created interrelated? This book, complete with biographical data, 250 illustrations, and explications of mathematical problems, offers answers to these and many other questions and is an authentic source text of the first order.