1. hobbies and interests
2. magic and illusion

Playful Imaginings: The Illusions
of M.C. Escher
Megan Rible
Stanford University
Escher’s 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.”
New Worlds
mixture of reality and reflection
 Three Spheres II, Three Worlds, Still
Life and Street

Illusion of Space

the human brain insists on making twodimensional pictures spatial
 Dragon, Three Spheres I
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
Relativity

My computer
rendering of
Escher’s world of
staircases. There
are three separate
points of view
depicted with the
same vanishing
points.
Rendering #2

Another, less
picturesque view,
but the
possibilities can
be seen.
Deep Fish
Contours - thickness decreases with
distance
 Network of Lines
 Rhythmic positioning
 Fading colors
 Colors go from warm - cold as water
gets deeper

Impossible Objects
“If you want to express something impossible
you must keep to certain rules…The 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

Impossible Cube

Here is the secret behind the impossible
cube that Escher displays in Belvedere
Roger Penrose’s Triangle
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 don’t get a step
farther or higher. I’m working my fingers to
the bone, believing I’m ascending. How
absurd it all is.”
Escher’s Staircase

Escher received
the idea for this
model from Roger
Penrose.
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.”

Computer Renderings
More Cool Stuff
Belvedere