Relativity (M. C. Escher)

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Relativity is a famous lithograph print by the Dutch artist M. C. Escher which was first printed in December, 1953.

It depicts a paradoxical world in which the normal laws of gravity do not apply. The architectural structure seems to be the centre of an idyllic community, with most of its inhabitants casually going about their ordinary business, like dining. There are windows and doorways leading to park-like outdoor settings. Yet all the figures are dressed in identical attire and have featureless bulb-shaped heads. Identical characters such as these can be found in many other Escher works.

In the world of Relativity, there are actually three sources of gravity, each being orthogonal to the two others. Each inhabitant lives in one of the gravity wells, where normal physical laws apply. There are sixteen characters, spread between each gravity source. The apparent confusion of the lithograph print comes from the fact that the three gravity sources are depicted in the same space.

The structure has three stairways, and each stairway can be used by people who belong to two different gravity sources. This creates interesting phenomena, such as in the top stairway, where two inhabitants use the same stairway in the same direction and on the same side, but each using a different face of each step. In the other stairways, inhabitants are depicted as climbing the stairways upside-down, but based on their own gravity source, they are climbing normally.

Another interesting fact is that each of the three parks belongs to one of the gravity wells. An inhabitant of a gravity source could not step in a garden that does not correspond, and would just fall out.

This is one of Escher’s most popular works and has been used in a variety of ways, as it can be appreciated both artistically and scientifically. Interrogations about perspective and the representation of three-dimensional images in a two-dimensional picture are at the core of Escher's work, and Relativity represents one of his greatest achievements in this domain.

[edit] References in popular culture

• Matt Groening, creator of The Simpsons, made a parody of Relativity in Life in Hell, where the cartoon rabbits fall down stairs at impossible angles. Groening would later reuse this joke in an episode of Futurama and as a couch gag on The Simpsons.
• In the Futurama episode I, Roommate, Fry and Bender go apartment-hunting and visit a room that resembles the painting. Fry claimed that he did not want to "pay for a dimension he wasn't going to use," and then Bender trips down one of the stairs and continues to fall.
• In an episode called Clara's Dirty Little Secret of the Comedy Central animated series Drawn Together, Princess Clara was pushed down by Toot Braunstein (and up, around, and back down) a flight of stairs modelled on Relativity. The room was called The M. C. Escher room.
• In the "Family Guy" episode Brian Goes Back To College, Stewie and Brian share a room where Stewie puts up a framed print of Relativity, which he calls "Crazy Stairs." He then breaks it while playing Ultimate Frisbee.
• In Devil May Cry 3: Dante's Awakening, one room is partially based on this. The gravitational problems are compensated for by gravity switching to whichever staircase the player is about to climb.
• In The Matrix: Path of Neo, one section of the Merovingian's Rooms is based principally on this painting.
• Characters walk up and down stairways apparently defying gravity in the climatic scene of Labyrinth.
• In Chrono Cross for the Playstation, the second and third rooms of the Temporal Distortion area are based on Relativity. The first room is based on Van Gogh's works.
• In the film Tomb Raider: The Cradle of Life the film's climax in the cradle also has several different gravity sources, which along with the lighting effects create a disorientating experience for the viewer.
• In the anime Cardcaptor Sakura, The Maze card creates a maze similar to Relativity.
• Sierra's early PC adventure game Quest for Glory I had a puzzle room with multiple false exits and trap doors. The game's narrative jokingly wonders if the room was designed by M.C. Escher.
• In Haunting Ground for Playstation 2, There is a room modelled after the painting complete with it's inhabitans.
• In the anime Yu-Gi-Oh!, the Millennium Puzzle, an Egyptian artifact owned by the protagonist, is said to contain the spirit of an ancient Pharaoh. The insides of the puzzle look remarkably like Relativity, which represents the Pharaoh's inability to remember his past. When various characters enter the puzzle during the course of the series, there are multiple gravitational pulls and strange dimensions (such as the instance when a main character, Joey, looks through a door, only to see himself inside looking through the same door some distance below).
• In the game Gauntlet: Dark Legacy, the final level of the Dream Realm, known as the Maze of Illusion, is somewhat based around relativity.