Escher's art

The Graphic Work Of M. C. Escher, sixty nine reproductions in black and white, four in colour. 12 1/2 × 9 inches. Preceded by classification and description. Oldbourne, London, 1967. Distributed by Whitcombe and Tombs.

Maurits Cornelius Escher is a master in visual perception. A dutch artist born 1898, the foundations of his art are constructed upon philosophy and mathematics, more specifically an integration of psychological perception and topological theory.

"Belvedere" is an example of a lithograph by M. C. Eschlar, done in 1958.

Escher is concerned primarily with the discrepancy between the mental image and the visual image. His perception of physical phenomena of the external world, via the optics and its interpretation and correlation within the mind. He believes, "A mental image is something completely different from a visual image, and however one exerts oneself, one can never manage to capture the fulness of that perfection which hovers in the mind and which one thinks of, quite falsely as something that is 'seen'."

Primarily figurative, Escher is technically competent in his use of graphic techniques of which examples in this book include lithographs, woodcuts, wood engravings, and mezzotints. Undoubtedly influenced by dada and surrealism his work is similar to Dali and Rene Margritte. Overtones of German expressionism prevade his graphic hallucinations which involve a subliminal awareness of death, absurdity, and the futility of human existence.