Salient. Victoria University Student Newspaper. Volume 36, Number 6. 4th April 1973
The Graphic Work of M.C. Escher
The Graphic Work of M.C. Escher
Maurits Escher, born June 17 1898 in Leeuwarden, Holland, is one of Europe's most original graphic artists - and an extremely skilled one.
He is, without any doubt, primarily a graphic artist; he has said that most of his life has been spent in making some kind of analytic composition out of his subjects by means of graphic processes such as wood-engraving or lithography.
Yet Escher sees unlimited possibilities in a theory that has been exploited for over 500 years: rendering the natural appearance of forms in space and through distance. Not content with the traditional theory, Escher combines several viewpoints in one print. The spectator has the sensation of viewing the scene simultaneously from above, below and on the same level.
The artist's technical mastery is unmistakable, making his most imaginative subjects convincing - sometimes frighteningly so. That his imagination is, to say the least, eccentric cannot be denied: his work is at once surrealistic, representational and macabre. Escher is mathematician, photographer, architect and visionary. He is all these things, and more: an artist.