191. Impossible worlds

Meet an amazing artist who intricately puts together Mathematics, Architecture, Geometry, light& shade, line and composition to bring you impossible worlds. MC Escher, works with these principles to create works of art that mess with your visual perception.

Impossible objects is not just an Escher term, its is what he used to create an illusion of 3 dimensional objects within a 2 dimensional space, using 2 dimensional lines. Here is a classic example of this illusion, the Necker's cube.

The box to the left ( Necker's cube) can be viewed from 2 angles :-

1) As sitting on the floor,hence exposing the front face, right face and topface.OR

2) It can be viewed as suspended in air, exposing the bottom face ,left face and front faces.

See it? 4 horizontal lines, 4 vertical lines, 4 lines at an angle ( 30 degrees?) produces a 3 dimensional object.It also allows us to switch between one box to the other, although we cannot view both of them at the same time.(The phenomena is called Multistable perception. )

The image to the right is an impossible cube.Stare at it for a few seconds and you will notice the flaw in the design. Although, it is seen as a cube at first glance.

Creating illusions through manipulating our visual sense is what Escher practices through his drawings.

He also worked with Tessellations, to morph objects to form other objects. (Escher is said to have been strongly influenced by mathematician-physicist Roger Penrose. )

Here are few examples, this one below is his first print among the many impossible objects.

An example where he uses tessellation to translate a bird to a fish , fish to a bird.

Here is a another example of Impossible objects.

So! Lets draw something from the impossible world today.

Tags: Drawing, Escher, Neckers, Penciljam, Perception, cube, drawing, in, penciljammers.

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Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by J L Anil Kumar on January 3, 2012 at 6:38pm

The very name Escher conjures up visions of impossibility! How does one try to do something like what he did? Scratch scratch!

However, this article may give an idea how "mathematical" Escher's art really is: http://www.nytimes.com/2002/07/30/science/mathematician-fills-in-a-...

This is the official website on the Leiden Uni project: http://escherdroste.math.leidenuniv.nl/index.php?menu=wdag

Permalink Reply by Akhila Akhlix on January 3, 2012 at 11:12pm

After hours of pouring over this project! is there an how to do it manual? It is difficult as I do not understand mathematics & to copy Escher, where does one start?! Will post it here if I can produce even 1 piece similar to Escher :) Phew! this is a challenge!

Permalink Reply by Alannah Atherton on January 4, 2012 at 10:05am