This is the 9th post in our Artist of the Week series.
M.C. Escher was born in 1898 with the name Mauritis Cornelius. As a child he was gifted at drawing but always had very poor grades. Eventually he went on to study the decorative arts and finally left school in 1922. After school he spent time in Italy, Switzerland, Belgium and the Netherlands. He began to focus on his art and specifically art of impossible situations in 1937. His first piece was Still Life and Street. From then until the end of his life he continued working with lithographs and woodcuts, always improving his skill and experimenting with perspective.
It was also in the 1930s that math began to affect and enter into his work. He became fascinated with order and symmetry and would often have this enter into his work, often combining it with his love of impossible situations.
Over his lifetime Escher completed over 2000 drawings and 448 lithographs. Escher's experimentation with perspective and reality continue to amaze people to this day. His drawings were never predictable or normal, evidence of this fact is seen in his own self portrait. Instead of using a mirror to look at his face, he used a globe and drew his reflection in the sphere.
Escher saw the world in a way that no one before him and it is this world of infinity and impossibilities that continue to make him one of history's most popular artists.
To learn more about M.C. Escher visit the official M.C. Escher website.
