Artful Thursday 4 - Escher

It must be the mathematician in me (and that is over 50% of my DNA) that draws me to the drawings of the Dutch artist Maurits Cornelis Escher who was actually born 113 years ago tomorrow. Here are some of my favourites.

First up is Relativity which was first produced in 1953 in which the normal rules of gravity are not suspended but operating in triplicate. There are three distinct centres of gravity operation along each of the three dimensional axis. It is why on each of the staircases two people are able to use them in their own gravitational normality.

Drawing Hands from 1948 is a visual paradox based on the wrists lying flat on the surface of the paper with the hand raised above to draw, yet each hand appears to be drawing the other.

And of course to confuddle us all, which way is up in Ascending and Descending from 1960 inspired by the Penrose Stairs concept envisioned by Lionel Penrose in 1958.