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M.C. Escher: 29 Mater Prints
Twenty-nine woodcuts and lithographs make use of optical illusions and unusual perspectives and are accompanied by the artist's comments.
62 pages, Paperback
First published April 15, 1983
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About the author
M.C. Escher
86 books191 followersMaurits Cornelis Escher, usually referred to as M.C. Escher, was a Dutch graphic artist. He is known for his often mathematically inspired woodcuts, lithographs and mezzotints. These feature impossible constructions, explorations of infinity, architecture and tessellations.
Maurits Cornelis, or "Mauk" as he came to be nicknamed, was was the youngest son of civil engineer George Arnold Escher and his second wife, Sara Gleichman. He was a sickly child, and was placed in a special school at the age of seven and failed the second grade. In 1903, the family moved to Arnhem where he took carpentry and piano lessons until he was thirteen years old.
From 1903 until 1918 he attended primary and secondary school. Though he excelled at drawing, his grades were generally poor. In 1919, Escher attended the Haarlem School of Architecture and Decorative Arts. He briefly studied architecture, but failed a number of subjects (partly due to a persistent skin infection) and switched to decorative arts. Here he studied under Samuel Jessurun de Mesquita, with whom he would remain friends for years. In 1922 Escher left the school, having gained experience in drawing and making woodcuts.
In 1922, an important year in his life, Escher traveled through Italy (Florence, San Gimignano, Volterra, Siena) and Spain (Madrid, Toledo, Granada). He was impressed by the Italian countryside and by the Alhambra, a fourteenth-century Moorish castle in Granada, Spain. He came back to Italy regularly in the following years. In Italy he met Jetta Umiker, whom he married in 1924. The young couple settled down in Rome and stayed there until 1935, when the political climate under Benito Mussolini became unbearable. Their son, Giorgio Arnaldo Escher, named after his grandfather, was born in Rome. The family next moved to Château-d'Œx, Switzerland where they remained for two years.
Escher, who had been very fond of and inspired by the landscapes in Italy, was decidedly unhappy in Switzerland, so in 1937, the family moved again, to Ukkel, a small town near Brussels, Belgium. World War II forced them to move in January 1941, this time to Baarn, the Netherlands, where Escher lived until 1970. Most of Escher's better-known pictures date from this period. The sometimes cloudy, cold, wet of the Netherlands allowed him to focus intently on his works, and only during 1962, when he underwent surgery, was there a time when no new images were created.
Escher moved to the Rosa-Spier house in Laren in 1970, a retirement home for artists where he had his own studio. He died at the home at 73 years of age.
Maurits Cornelis, or "Mauk" as he came to be nicknamed, was was the youngest son of civil engineer George Arnold Escher and his second wife, Sara Gleichman. He was a sickly child, and was placed in a special school at the age of seven and failed the second grade. In 1903, the family moved to Arnhem where he took carpentry and piano lessons until he was thirteen years old.
From 1903 until 1918 he attended primary and secondary school. Though he excelled at drawing, his grades were generally poor. In 1919, Escher attended the Haarlem School of Architecture and Decorative Arts. He briefly studied architecture, but failed a number of subjects (partly due to a persistent skin infection) and switched to decorative arts. Here he studied under Samuel Jessurun de Mesquita, with whom he would remain friends for years. In 1922 Escher left the school, having gained experience in drawing and making woodcuts.
In 1922, an important year in his life, Escher traveled through Italy (Florence, San Gimignano, Volterra, Siena) and Spain (Madrid, Toledo, Granada). He was impressed by the Italian countryside and by the Alhambra, a fourteenth-century Moorish castle in Granada, Spain. He came back to Italy regularly in the following years. In Italy he met Jetta Umiker, whom he married in 1924. The young couple settled down in Rome and stayed there until 1935, when the political climate under Benito Mussolini became unbearable. Their son, Giorgio Arnaldo Escher, named after his grandfather, was born in Rome. The family next moved to Château-d'Œx, Switzerland where they remained for two years.
Escher, who had been very fond of and inspired by the landscapes in Italy, was decidedly unhappy in Switzerland, so in 1937, the family moved again, to Ukkel, a small town near Brussels, Belgium. World War II forced them to move in January 1941, this time to Baarn, the Netherlands, where Escher lived until 1970. Most of Escher's better-known pictures date from this period. The sometimes cloudy, cold, wet of the Netherlands allowed him to focus intently on his works, and only during 1962, when he underwent surgery, was there a time when no new images were created.
Escher moved to the Rosa-Spier house in Laren in 1970, a retirement home for artists where he had his own studio. He died at the home at 73 years of age.
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Displaying 1 - 19 of 19 reviews
May 6, 2015
This is the second copy of this book I've bought, I gave the first one away to a friend who couldn't believe the trickery of Escher's sly imagination. I like Escher for the same reason I like Hieronymus Bosch: by the time you've worked out what's going on, your mood has lifted from any previous doom and gloom. Escher was sane and clever and Hieronymous Bosch a fevered, religious maniac and they share nothing in common, except in my mind.
November 25, 2021
im in awe. escher the writer, the thinker, is a personality to be reckoned with.
February 17, 2013
29 Twenty-nine woodcuts and lithographs make use of optical illusions and unusual perspectives and are accompanied by the artist's comments.
Nearly everyone will have seen some of the work of Dutch graphic artist Maurits Cornelis Escher (1898-1970). His woodcuts and lithographs are largely based in mathematics and geometry, and provide endless fascination. Many of the two dimensional images Escher created simply could not exist in the three dimenional world, yet on paper they LOOK entirely plausible at first glance (for instance, "Ascending and Descending" and "Belvedere"), and this alone gives the mind of the viewer plenty to ponder. Escher also incorporated tessellations - images composed of repeating, interlocking shapes - into many of his pieces (such as in "Reptiles" or "Fish"), and he played with the idea of having different figures in the same composition existing on different planes, despite sharing the same space. For instance, a surface which is the floor for one figure may be a wall for another (see "Relativity").
This particular book is a very nice collection of some of Escher's most well-known pieces, and is very afordable. There are certainly more detailed books on Escher's life and work available, such as J.L. Locker's 200-page "The Magic of M.C. Escher," but "29 Master Prints" is a great alternative for those who simply want something visually stimulating to put on their coffee table, without too much text. Each print covers a full page (and these are large pages - approximately 14.5 x 10.5 inches), and is accompanied by a small amount of text on the facing page, giving the piece's title, date of completion, medium, dimensions, and a short blurb offering insights about the print, written by either Escher himself or one of several other authors. The explanations written by the artist are often delightfully witty. At the beginning of the book there is a short essay by Escher, "On Being a Graphic Artist."
One disappointment I found was that the print of "Metamorphosis III" is broken up into pieces to fit it all on one page, so you can't see it end-to-end. I would rather have seen this done as some sort of fold-out. Also, unfortunately, this book does not appear to be available in hardcover, so it is slightly less durable. Nevertheless, I would certainly recommend "29 Master Prints" to any fan of Escher's work.
Following is a list of the particular twenty-nine prints included:
"Rind" - on front cover
"Other World"
"Smaller and Smaller"
"Circle Limit III"
"Knots"
"Hand with Reflecting Sphere (Self-Portrait in Spherical Mirror)"
"Balcony"
"Circle Limit IV (Heaven and Hell)"
"Ascending and Descending"
"Day and Night"
"Regular Division of the Plane III"
"Sky and Water I"
"Cycle"
"Metamorphosis III"
"Belvedere"
"Reptiles"
"Relativity"
"Fish" - 1942 woodcut
"Mobius Strip II (Red Ants)"
"Snakes"
"Fish" - 1941 woodcut
"Drawing Hands"
"Three Spheres I"
"Stars"
"Waterfall"
"Double Planetoid (Double Planet)"
"Dream (Mantis Religiosa)"
"Concentric Rinds (Concentric Space Filling / Regular Sphere Division)"
"Dragon"
Nearly everyone will have seen some of the work of Dutch graphic artist Maurits Cornelis Escher (1898-1970). His woodcuts and lithographs are largely based in mathematics and geometry, and provide endless fascination. Many of the two dimensional images Escher created simply could not exist in the three dimenional world, yet on paper they LOOK entirely plausible at first glance (for instance, "Ascending and Descending" and "Belvedere"), and this alone gives the mind of the viewer plenty to ponder. Escher also incorporated tessellations - images composed of repeating, interlocking shapes - into many of his pieces (such as in "Reptiles" or "Fish"), and he played with the idea of having different figures in the same composition existing on different planes, despite sharing the same space. For instance, a surface which is the floor for one figure may be a wall for another (see "Relativity").
This particular book is a very nice collection of some of Escher's most well-known pieces, and is very afordable. There are certainly more detailed books on Escher's life and work available, such as J.L. Locker's 200-page "The Magic of M.C. Escher," but "29 Master Prints" is a great alternative for those who simply want something visually stimulating to put on their coffee table, without too much text. Each print covers a full page (and these are large pages - approximately 14.5 x 10.5 inches), and is accompanied by a small amount of text on the facing page, giving the piece's title, date of completion, medium, dimensions, and a short blurb offering insights about the print, written by either Escher himself or one of several other authors. The explanations written by the artist are often delightfully witty. At the beginning of the book there is a short essay by Escher, "On Being a Graphic Artist."
One disappointment I found was that the print of "Metamorphosis III" is broken up into pieces to fit it all on one page, so you can't see it end-to-end. I would rather have seen this done as some sort of fold-out. Also, unfortunately, this book does not appear to be available in hardcover, so it is slightly less durable. Nevertheless, I would certainly recommend "29 Master Prints" to any fan of Escher's work.
Following is a list of the particular twenty-nine prints included:
"Rind" - on front cover
"Other World"
"Smaller and Smaller"
"Circle Limit III"
"Knots"
"Hand with Reflecting Sphere (Self-Portrait in Spherical Mirror)"
"Balcony"
"Circle Limit IV (Heaven and Hell)"
"Ascending and Descending"
"Day and Night"
"Regular Division of the Plane III"
"Sky and Water I"
"Cycle"
"Metamorphosis III"
"Belvedere"
"Reptiles"
"Relativity"
"Fish" - 1942 woodcut
"Mobius Strip II (Red Ants)"
"Snakes"
"Fish" - 1941 woodcut
"Drawing Hands"
"Three Spheres I"
"Stars"
"Waterfall"
"Double Planetoid (Double Planet)"
"Dream (Mantis Religiosa)"
"Concentric Rinds (Concentric Space Filling / Regular Sphere Division)"
"Dragon"
September 17, 2012
This book graces our bookshelf right beside Godel, Escher and Bach. One of my favorite books. We have two Escher pieces on the walls of the living room and when we have guests stand to admire them, I open up this book to their pages and let them take in the author's own description of them. Priceless.
December 14, 2020
I couldn't say what scholars or art historians would get out of this volume, but from the perspective of a casual fan, M.C. Escher's 29 MASTER PRINTS is very satisfying. While I recognized most of the prints, there were still several that were new to me and enjoyable to study. Each piece is accompanied by a commentary (or commentaries), sometimes from Escher himself, sometimes from what I assume to be an academic, with some longer or more insightful than others but always interesting to read. The volume itself is physically large, almost to the point of being cumbersome, but Escher's meticulous details demand it and it makes careful study of his precise linework possible.
My favorite aspect of the collection, though, is that the book's editor (Darlene Geis) has chosen to frame it by using as the forward a reprinted commentary from M.C. Escher called "On being a graphic artist". In this essay (excerpt?), Escher talks about two worldviews that he believes dominate most of human thinking--an analytical one that centers on physicality and the laws of nature and a relationship-oriented one that centers on the concerns of people--and the fact that he strives to create art that perfectly straddles the line between the two and find balance. The reader is then primed to ask themselves, as they look at the images in this volume, "How is Escher using mathematics and geometry here to express or interrogate a relationship?" As obvious as this question seems in retrospect, I had never considered his work through that lens before until it was spelled out to me.
Still, Escher's work is compelling to look at it regardless of any deeper meaning, and a reader could just as easily ignore the forward and all the commentary and still have a nice time considering the art. I'm happy to have this one in my library.
My favorite aspect of the collection, though, is that the book's editor (Darlene Geis) has chosen to frame it by using as the forward a reprinted commentary from M.C. Escher called "On being a graphic artist". In this essay (excerpt?), Escher talks about two worldviews that he believes dominate most of human thinking--an analytical one that centers on physicality and the laws of nature and a relationship-oriented one that centers on the concerns of people--and the fact that he strives to create art that perfectly straddles the line between the two and find balance. The reader is then primed to ask themselves, as they look at the images in this volume, "How is Escher using mathematics and geometry here to express or interrogate a relationship?" As obvious as this question seems in retrospect, I had never considered his work through that lens before until it was spelled out to me.
Still, Escher's work is compelling to look at it regardless of any deeper meaning, and a reader could just as easily ignore the forward and all the commentary and still have a nice time considering the art. I'm happy to have this one in my library.
October 1, 2020
I have always loved M C Escher's drawings. I've wanted to see more of his works and found this at the library. Escher was a great artist. I saw works i'd never seen, along with his own explanations. Very good book.
February 20, 2018
I find Escher's art very impressive. But then, come to find out they were actually wooden carvings, wood engravings, and lithographs... Wow!
November 9, 2019
A brilliant artist.
I loved reading the commentary.
I loved reading the commentary.
March 31, 2025
Tell me what makes you feel desired. Tonight, I want to be the one who makes you feel that way, in every way imaginable.
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May 10, 2008I absolutely love Escher's work; I think he was a veritable genius! My brothers surprised me last year when they brought me to a local Sacramento museum that had real work by Escher. I was floored! This book just has prints with no explanatory text, so it's not the perfect book if you like this artist's work but it's a start.
I'd give this five stars because of my bias but there are better books.
I'd give this five stars because of my bias but there are better books.
June 25, 2015
A great collection of Escher's work, nicely complemented by notes from Escher and others. It is a wonderful presentation of the art and the ideas behind it, examining questions about how people perceive spaces, flatness, dimensions, and art in general, all with a hint toward some of the mathematical concepts behind it all. The later notes with the later pictures in the book also discuss how Escher's work also became popular with American pop music and the psychedelic art movement in the 60s.
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October 2, 2011I found this book while browsing at my local Barnes & Nobles. It has some of Escher's most famous pieces, including "Waterfall" and "Drawing Hands". Each one is set by itself on a whole page and the facing page has Escher's own description of the piece.
November 30, 2007
I am a fan of Escher, although I look at his prints as more graphic art than fine art.
September 2, 2016
Great collection of his prints. Comments about them by artist too. Would be the Escher book to own.
September 1, 2011
Visually appealing and I share the apprecication for his work. Whenever I am lacking inpiration, I find this a good place to be.
June 16, 2012
Beautiful imagery and notes on Escher's work.
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April 28, 2013good
February 25, 2015
Review coming soon.
April 22, 2013
I can look at his pieces for hours!
Displaying 1 - 19 of 19 reviews