THE MAGIC MIRROR OF M.C. ESCHER

"A woman once rang me up and said, 'Mr. Escher, I am absolutely crazy aboutyour work. In your print Reptiles you have given such a strikingillustration of reincarnation.' I replied, ‘Madame, if that`s theway you see it, so be it.`" An engagingly sly comment by the renownedDutch graphic artist Maurits Cornelis Escher (1898-1972)—the complexambiguities of whose work leave hasty or single-minded interpretations farbehind. Long before the first computer-generated 3-D images were thrillingthe public, Escher was a master of the third dimension. His lithograph"Magic Mirror" dates as far back as 1946. In taking that title for thisbook, mathematician Bruno Ernst is stressing the magic spell Escher`s workinvariably casts on those who see it. Ernst visited Escher every week for ayear, systematically talking through his entire œuvre with him. Theirdiscussions resulted in a friendship that gave Ernst intimate access to thelife and conceptual world of Escher. Ernst`s account was meticulouslyscrutinized and made accurate by the artist himself. Escher`s work refuses to be pigeonholed. Scientific, psychological, oraesthetic criteria alone cannot do it justice. The questions remain. Whydid he create the pictures? How did he construct them? What preliminarystudies were necessary before he could arrive at the final version? Andhow are the various images Escher created interrelated? This book,complete with biographical data, 250 illustrations, and explications ofmathematical problems, offers answers to these and many other questions,and is an authentic source text of the first order.