Playful Imaginings: The Illusions of M.C. Escher

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Playful Imaginings The Illusions of M.C. Escher

• Megan Rible
• Stanford University

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Eschers Inspiration

• Sometimes it seems as though we are all obsessed
  with a longing for the impossible. The reality
  around us, the three dimensional world
  surrounding us, is too ordinary, too boring, too
  common. We yearn for the unnatural or the
  supernatural, the impossible, the miraculous.

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New Worlds

• mixture of reality and reflection
• Three Spheres II, Three Worlds, Still Life and
  Street

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Illusion of Space

• the human brain insists on making two-dimensional
  pictures spatial
• Dragon, Three Spheres I

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Perspective

• focusing attention on the nadir Tower of Babel
• interchanging zenith, nadir, and distance points
  Other World, Relativity
• curved lines of perspective Up and Down, House
  of Stairs

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Relativity

• My computer rendering of Eschers world of
  staircases. There are three separate points of
  view depicted with the same vanishing points.

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Rendering 2

• Another, less picturesque view, but the
  possibilities can be seen.

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Deep Fish

• Contours - thickness decreases with distance
• Network of Lines
• Rhythmic positioning
• Fading colors
• Colors go from warm - cold as water gets deeper

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Impossible Objects

• If you want to express something impossible you
  must keep to certain rulesThe element of mystery
  to which you want to draw attention should be
  surrounded and veiled by a quite obvious, readily
  recognizable commonness.
• quasi-spatial only exist on a flat surface
• Convex and Concave, Print Gallery

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Impossible Cube

• Here is the secret behind the impossible cube
  that Escher displays in Belvedere

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Roger Penroses Triangle
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The Endless Staircase

• Yes, yes, we climb up and up, we imagine we are
  ascending every step is about ten inches high,
  terribly tiring- and where does it all get us?
  Nowhere we dont get a step farther or higher.
  Im working my fingers to the bone, believing Im
  ascending. How absurd it all is.

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Eschers Staircase

• Escher received the idea for this model from
  Roger Penrose.

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Quotes

• Although I am absolutely without training or
  knowledge in the exact sciences, I often seem to
  have more in common with mathematicians than with
  my fellow-artists.
• An understanding of the relationships between
  plane and space is a source of emotion for me
  and emotion is a strong incentive, or at least a
  stimulus for making a picture.

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Computer Renderings
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More Cool Stuff
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Belvedere