Submission #18: Can a floor also be a ceiling?

I realize that this is a bit of a weird question to allow me to rephrase it, “How does perceptive change one's understanding of the artwork?” MC Escher was a Dutch graphic artist who made mathematically inspired woodcuts, lithographs, and mezzotints. His artwork is famous for its optical illusions and his bizarre use of reflections. While his art is very popular, you may have seen it before but you didn’t realize it was MC Escher’s work, his life remains very vague. Many questions have arisen of what inspired him to create such dream- like works of art.

            A BBC Arts articles delves deeper into the mystery that is MC Escher. This article, titled “'Chaos is present everywhere': The mysterious world of MC Escher” by William Crook (http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/articles/1TXskHdW0Hrtng1bYgzRBRf/chaos-is-present-everywhere-the-mysterious-world-of-mc-escher) explains that the reason Escher wasn’t very famous was because he didn’t want to be. He kept to himself and wasn’t interested in fame and celebrity status. He enjoyed a conventional, bourgeois lifestyle. In fact, “When Mick Jagger wrote to him, asking if the Rolling Stones could use one of his pictures as an album cover, Escher turned him down. He’d never heard of the Stones. He’d never heard of Jagger. He objected to Jagger addressing him by his first name.” While Escher had a normal life with his wife and kids, he was shyer with his art. He developed his own style, free from any school or movement; he had more in common with medieval artists than with surrealist contemporaries.

            Again, MC Escher is famous for his optical illusionistic art that incorporates math, with the help of his friend Sir Roger Penrose. Sir Roger Penrose was a young student at Cambridge University when he was attending an academic conference in Amsterdam, at the same time Penrose saw Escher’s show, and loved it. The two became pen pals and Escher was inspired by Penrose’s math so much that he incorporated it into his artwork. There is no real concrete evidence as to how and why he came up with these ideas, but all we know is that MC Escher wanted to challenge our perspective. He wanted us to change the way we looked at things and the way we understood art. He wanted us to question and look at art upside down to see if we found another perspective. Everybody experiences art differently, some may look at it straight and collect the first thought that comes to their mind, while others may spend their time looking at the piece from every angle to see which one best fits them. MC Escher was one of the great artists that question our perceptions of reality.