Talk:M. C. Escher

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The following comments about the quality and importance of this article have been left: (C. Escher/Comments|action=edit}} edit – C. Escher/Comments|action=history}} history – C. Escher/Comments|action=watch}} watch – C. Escher|action=purge}} refresh)

Page looks good, don't know how it didn't have a rating yet. Burzmali 16:31, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

58.105.169.209 08:10, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

Contents

[edit] Heads

Someone has replaced the heads/titles in this article with total nonsense. Can someone set this article back and replace the original ones?

[edit] Older comments

How about putting the references in other works (Simpsons, Labyrinth) under a heading "Trivia"? It looks a little out of place... --Vintermann

The math behind much of Escher's work has been explored in various documentaries and in at least one article in Scientific American, published sometime before '97. In this article it was mentioned that one of the constructions on a building in an Escher print exemplified some principle of quantum physics, years before that principle was discovered. Does anyone know anything further about this (when the article might have been published or, better yet, the story behind that construction and/or the principle of quantum physics and/or their significance?) Also this article could stand some discussion of perspective and math, but I am not knowledgeable enough to do it right and so will leave it alone. I hope someone else will be interested enough to add it.  :-) --Koyaanis Qatsi

Most of the prints associated with him were only sketched out by him. The full prints only occurred after he died.

This seems rather contradictory to what I know of him, which left me with the impression that woodcuts, lithographs, etc. were what he did, so it wouldn't seem he'd make lots of sketches and then not doing anything with them, aside from the inferior ones. Does anyone know about this one way or the other? The anon contributor doesn't seem to have ever come back after that day, which casts some doubt on it as well. -- John Owens 22:40 Apr 25, 2003 (UTC)

I think the anonymous assertion is not true. Escher sold his prints, with occasional lulls in sales, throughout his life as mentioned in this biography, and H.S.M. Coxeter published at least one paper about an Escher print. What MIGHT have been meant is that he's better known after his death than during his life, but one might say the same about many artists.... -- Someone else 22:48 Apr 25, 2003 (UTC)
I'm the third person, apparently, who is highly suspicious of this claim. I have the book M.C. Escher: His Life and Complete Graphic Work which talks throughout about how he made and sold prints throughout his life. I'm removing the anonymous misinformation. -- Wapcaplet 21:43 24 May 2003 (UTC)

"...the cloudy, cold, wet weather of the Netherlands allowed him to focus entirely on his works..."

This is highly suspect. It's not ALWAYS cloudy, cold and wet in the Netherlands, any more than it is just across the North Sea in England... Lee M 03:45, 24 Jan 2004 (UTC)

I suspect that the Worldofescher site may be infectious with the password stealing virus Pwsteal.Tarno.H (this is definitely not certain, as the virus might have come from elsewhere). As I browsed to the site I suddenly got a warning about a process trying to set itself to startup (thank StartupMonitor!), googled for the "slchost" and it resulted in Tarno.H. IMO this should be investigated more closely.

[edit] High and Low VS Up and Down

afaik Up and Down is actually High and Low. (clem 17:52, 22 Mar 2005 (UTC))

I have to agree on this. (Cosmotron 04:43, 16 Mar 2006 (UTC))

[edit] Pronunciation?

Is it [esh-er] or [ess-her]? Please add it in the article. Similarly, "Bosch" is said to be correctly pronounced [boss-h], not [bosh].

[esh-er]. bartleby.com has lots of recorded pronounciations, including this one. http://www.bartleby.com/61/99/E0209900.html --sparkit (talk) 19:51, Jun 6, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Images

Its a biography of an artist and there's only one picture. Please one of his amazing sketches, perferably a stairway one. Redwolf24

This would be great, except his works are still all under copyright as far as I know. You will just have to visit the library or buy a book. One of the drawbacks of Wikipedia... Note that the one picture here is copyrighted and used with permission. Unfortunately this type of permission does not include third party use, and Wiki contents are meant to be freely shared and used anywhere. Thus even this image will be removed when the Wiki police get around to it. --Blainster 04:50, 19 July 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Donating my Flickr photos

All the photos in my Flickr account are Creative Commons-licensed so feel free to use them on Wikipedia. I'm too lazy to add the photos myself, so I'm leaving it up to you guys. http://flickr.com/photos/kentwang/tags/mceschermuseum/

Kent Wang 12:48, 8 August 2005 (UTC)

[edit] MC Escher In Popular Culture.

Suspiria And Escher. I've moved this reference to Escher from the list of Popular Culture at M. C. Escher Page. Here is the text of unconfirmed link :The Dario Argento film "Suspiria" takes place on Escherstrasse, and garish Escher wallpaper fills the school. I still could not find any reliable link or source who can verify this statement.Anyone else has seen Suspiria?--asydwaters 07:09, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

I was thinking that perhaps the Pop Cult section ought to be divided into Relativity and Other! —Tamfang 02:09, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

How about mentioning uses (acknowledged or not) of his jobs in advertisements in magazines. Being an Escher fan, I collected those for years, and could cite some of them? --Olivier Debre 12:01, 5 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Image thumbnails

Since many of the 'Selected list of works' have images, shoudl they be made into a gallery with tiny thumbnails? -Ravedave 19:36, 18 January 2006 (UTC)


[edit] image

found this image on the portugese article on escher - is this something designed by him? Image:Le Havre St Jospeh int1 fractal.jpg -- Astrokey44|talk 03:44, 23 March 2006 (UTC)

It's a photograph manipulated with GIMP. —Tamfang 04:34, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Photograph of Escher?

His drawings are great but I think there should be a photograph portrait of him instead of Hand with Reflecting Sphere.

[edit] ISBN

Michele Emmer's video had an invalid ISBN. IF anyone can add the correct one 'twould be good. Rich Farmbrough 13:27 23 August 2006 (GMT).

[edit] Popular Culture reference removed

The following was removed from the article [1], I nearly reverted it before realising the editor who removed them wasn't a vandal. Moved here so that discussion can follow on which of these, if any, can be retained.

  • The Doctor Who episode Castrovalva takes its name from Escher's early lithograph of the same name, though Escher's view of Castrovalva has none of the paradoxical elements of his later works to which the setting of the episode could more readily be compared.
  • Eric Shanower's illustrations of the Absurd City in Paradox in Oz are clearly based on Escher's illustrations.
  • Similarly, on Comedy Central animated series Drawn Together, the episode "Clara's Dirty Little Secret" featured a supposedly pregnant Princess Clara being pushed down by Toot Braunstein (and up, around, and back down) a flight of stairs modeled on Relativity in the aptly named M. C. Escher Room.
  • In the Jim Henson movie Labyrinth, Relativity is referenced again. The audience is again treated to an answer to the great question: what if somebody walks off the edge? The Escher estate was given acknowledgement in the credits for the film.
  • In Larry Niven's novel Protector, the protagonist builds a working model of Relativity using gravitational engineering.
  • The bonus stages of the first Sonic the Hedgehog game, for the Sega Genesis/Mega Drive, feature an animated background of birds turning into fish, a reference to Sky and Water.
  • The early nineties rock music group Chagall Guevara wrote a song called "Escher's World" which made many references to the impossible structures that can be found in Escher's work.
  • Escher is also the subject of a song by the rock group The Breakfast. The song is called "Escher's Etchings" and is included on their 2003 live album Bona Fide. The lyrics can be read here
  • The interior of the Temple of The Ancients in Final Fantasy VII is modeled after M.C. Escher's Relativity.
  • The music video for "Around the World" by Daft Punk, directed by Michel Gondry, is based on Escher's Encounter.
  • The music video for "Drive" by Incubus is based on Drawing Hands, beginning with an animated hand drawing a piece of paper and second hand to form the actual Escher drawing. It also shows the hand drawing lead singer Brandon Boyd to attach itself to. All drawings in the video were done by the band members themselves.
  • The cover art of Dio's 1985 album Sacred Heart is similar to Escher's "Hand with Reflecting Sphere."
  • A comic crossover between Mike Allred's Madman and Bernie Mireault's The Jam, features Escher as a central character when the two characters enter into an alternate universe created by a somewhat godlike Escher, based on many of his works.
  • "Escher" is the title of a song by the British band Teenage Fanclub. The song is about a man who doesn't know if he is up or down.
  • "Weird Al" Yankovic's 2006 song, White & Nerdy contains the lyrics "M.C. Escher—that's my favorite MC."
  • One of Jeremy Shafer's origami models, 'Folding The Blintz Base', is based on M.C. Escher's 'Drawing Hands', which inspired him as it was on the cover of Peter Engels origami book "Origami: From Angelfish to Zen".
  • In the 1989 motion picture "A Nightmare On Elm Street 5: The Dream Child" Freddy Krueger creates an enormous M.C. Escher-like maze (which is designed from the Church, the Junkyard, the Asylum, the Boiler Room, and 1428 Elm Street, all parts of the dreamworld Krueger uses on his victims) which the final showdown between Krueger and Alice takes place.
(Reformatted to restore bulleted items)
I say keep it out; there's far too much of this kind of crap in this so-called encyclopedia. +ILike2BeAnonymous 17:35, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Restored

I've restored the section. There's no valid reason for a removal of a section like that which has persisted for a while. It's common in all sorts of articles, including artists and works of art. Removal of individual entries might be valid if discussed, but not the whole section. *Sparkhead 15:20, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

There is a valid reason: the whole section is unreferenced, contains much original research, and is irrelevant to the subject of the article. But, heigh ho. --RobertG ♬ talk 15:53, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
Check Mona Lisa or Sistine Chapel for other examples. Pop culture references only need to be relevant in as much as they reference the subject. Note some of the items you've linked as "citation needed" already have internal citation on the wikipages mentioned in the items. *Sparkhead 16:36, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
I agree with RobertG: The list of pop culture references doesn't give any information about Escher. The fact that other articles contain similar lists doesn't make them acceptable: Those articles are not necessarily good. Can you name a Feature Article that has a similar list? What about official Wikipedia policies on them? Some pop culture trivia may be admissible, if they have real reference to the subject; but ones that cite only the name "M.C.Escher" should be deleted without esitation. Eubulide 16:47, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
The current feature article has a pop culture section. There are others (check the literature section in particular). Some, like The Lord of the Rings became so substantial they spawned a fork: The Lord of the Rings in pop culture, a bulleted list. Others, like Infinite monkey theorem retain the section internally. Official policy? I don't know. The section is common enough in major articles, including ones that have been featured. Let the tags sit as they are, and give them some time for references to be provided. Removal of items which go beyond the name (like the Niven one) is not appropriate at this time. *Sparkhead 17:21, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
You misunderstand the problem: it's not merely that all these items are unsourced. Even if they were fully sourced, most of them still don't belong here because, as has been explained numerous times here, they don't have anything to do with M.C. Escher. A few of them (more "notable" ones) can remain, but most of these should simply be swept away as the flotsam and jetsam that they are. +ILike2BeAnonymous 17:34, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
Your argument is baseless. For example, Cultural depictions of Joan of Arc which contains items ranging from operas to video games, was a featured list [2] and is still listed as such. Note some of the items. A similar list here of sourced items is perfectly acceptable. If it grows large enough I don't see an issue with forking it into another article. *Sparkhead 19:48, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
The example that Sparkhead cites are very different from the present: in the case of 0.999... there is one reference to pop culture, that was perfectly on topic and was given with an extended explanation, not just with a list item. Also in Infinite monkey theorem the quotations have an explanation that links them to the topic; besides, that article is itself a curiosity that has obvious pop culture potential. The Lord of the Rings in pop culture is a separate article from The Lord of the Rings exactly because excessive irrelevant trivia would have flooded the original. Similarly, Cultural depictions of Joan of Arc is separate from Joan of Arc. I have no objection if you want to create M. C. Escher in pop culture as a list. I just think that these snippets of entertainment news don't belong here. Eubulide 20:26, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

I completely agree. None of that crap is notable, and much of it is tenuous. I have removed it again. I was about to create M. C. Escher in pop culture, but the lack of notability is even more glaring when you see that stuff on its own. The article is immensely improved without it!--Slashme 21:33, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

It's been in the article for over a year. That implies a consensus to retain it. Do not delete large portions of an article. Bring up an RfC if you must. *Sparkhead 21:46, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

The fact that flotsam and jetsam has been drifting around on a page for a year doesn't imply any kind of consensus, just that no-one has taken the trouble to clean house.
How about a middle way. Take a look at the list, and find the three most notable, relevant items and put them back. I personally think every single item in that list fails notability miserably, but I'm willing to compromise if you feel strongly. --Slashme 07:08, 26 October 2006 (UTC)
I feel such a list is useful since it can bring people who know the work but not the artist into the article simply thru wiki links. In other words, it helps the article and other content within it, as well as help awareness of the subject. However I've since discovered a "popular culture" category which I think would help even further, so I'm forking it into a new article and placing it in that category. *Sparkhead 11:49, 26 October 2006 (UTC)
OK, that seems sensible. When you've done that, you should probably link to it in this article. --Slashme 07:39, 27 October 2006 (UTC)
Already did in the "See Also" section. If you feel it merits a sentence mention elsewhere in the article, feel free to insert it , thanks. *Sparkhead 11:58, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Held for the release version

I have never heard of him. This isn't exactly A-Class, and it doesn't get many Google hits either. Eyu100(t|fr|Version 1.0 Editorial Team) 17:27, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

Huh? World-famous artist. I can't imagine leaving him out. I get over a million google hits. -- Fan-1967 17:32, 30 November 2006 (UTC)
I've re-added it. Its quality appears similar to many other articles already slated for the release version, and to question the relevance of Escher because you "have never heard of him" is shaky reasoning at best. I've asked for a different person to review the entry and provide useful commentary on improving the article if it is warranted for inclusion purposes. *Spark* 18:13, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Sex Life?

Maybe it's just me, but this feels a little out of place and inappropriate in the sub-section heading. How about if we call ti "Marriage and Personal Life," or something along those lines instead? Mathfreq 23:12, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

I had sex with him.

Twice. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 65.29.128.111 (talk) 04:31, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Images and copyright

I am very much concerned that many of the images used here are a blatant copyright violation. The only even remote justification for fair use that I can possible see is a sort of convoluted "educational fair use", unless the MC Escher estate/company has explicitely released these images under some sort of FOSS license. this page on the official site seems to indicate that copyright licensing is more intended with a commercial propritary license rather than something more typical for compatability with the GFDL.

I'm not suggesting here that the MC Escher Company is trying to assert copyright authority here, but at the same time we have to be careful when using images like these that permission is obtained. Even though the images are "contributing significantly to the article", I think at this point the line has been crossed past which you can no longer claim fair-use.

I don't know a reasonable replacement for these images, and they do make the article very attractive. They just don't belong on Wikipedia unless some suitable licensing arrangements can be made to gain copyright permission for articles like this. --Robert Horning 10:20, 1 January 2007 (UTC)

  • Other than the number of self portraits, I disagree. I just reread Wikipedia:Fair use: These images are small and low enough resolution to fully qualify as fair use. I would also like to see an example of his tiling as it is discussed in the article. I have noticed a few in use in the project that we could use. But I want to pick one good example and don't have time at present. Dimitrii 17:34, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Dutch money

Didn't he design banknotes for the Netherlands? --84.20.17.84 17:13, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

Yes but the designs were never used, if memory serves. —Tamfang 06:57, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Income

I heard in a documentary that he congratulated that after the war, he was able to sustain himself from his work for several months. What did he live on earlier? --84.20.17.84 17:17, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Date of birth

I see the birth date has recently been changed from 17 to 18. Could someone with access to reliable reference materials please check this out? --Slashme 13:01, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] deleted trivia

This is the text I have deleted from the article:

==Trivia== *M.C Escher is featured by the American musician and parodist "Weird Al" Yankovic in his single "White & Nerdy" as being "his favorite MC", a slang term for a rapper.''

If any editor considers it to be of interest and essential to the article, please accept my apologies and re-paste it (but please also include citation, as the item does seem doubtful).

--Technopat 08:27, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Age of the Alhambra

The palace was built chiefly between 1238 and 1358, ... and ... the splendid decorations of the interior are ascribed to Yusuf I (died 1354), i.e. the second half of the interval. These data are available anywhere, v.gr. Encyclopædia Britannica, 1, p. 267, and were quoted as such here in the article Alhambra. For the purpose of the arabesques, to keep "the Alhambra is a fourteenth-century palace" is just best. I revert consequently.

Kind regards, Zack Holly Venturi 16:57, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

(N.B. I'd better clarify what I reverted was only one word in the third line of Early life's section:
I just substituted the word fourteenth for fifteenth, so restoring the previous writing, which had been vandalized a week earlier.
I apologize for the imprecision.
Zack) —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Zack Holly Venturi (talk • contribs) 17:09, 6 March 2007 (UTC).

[edit] Missing content

someone appears to have deleted all the content this seems like the last valid revision

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=M._C._Escher&oldid=115205420

im unsure on how to revert it

--DarkAxi0m 03:11, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Math and Art of Escher

Anneke Bart and I are working on a textbook for a math course we teach called "Math and the art of M.C. Escher". It's a wikibook, and someday may make the transition to WikiBooks except there's issues with copyright and with trying to use an editable book in a live class. Anyway, I've added a link in the External Links section. As part of it, we're building a comprehensive list of his artwork, with images (legal) and other information.. I didn't add a link to that subpage, but feel free. Bryanclair 05:46, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Escher userbox

Feel free to use this userbox.

This user enjoys optical illusions, especially the impossible constructions of M. C. Escher.




use {{User:Xenocidic/Escher}} to add this to your userpage (who's using it?)

Cheers. xenocidic (talk) 14:16, 12 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] funny

The asteroid 4444 Escher, discovered in 1985, was named forforforfor him.

) maybe this needs to be cleaned out?

--213.98.129.17 (talk) 12:38, 19 March 2008 (UTC)