M. C. Escher

Bool 441

After abandoning his technical studies at university, M.C. Escher pursued his profound interest in mathematics through printmaking. Early in his artistic career, he eagerly strove to improve his technical craftsmanship, but later on, Escher focused on challenging himself more intellectually, seeking the best ways to express his thoughts and illusionistic visions.

Although Escher’s prints often depict mysterious scenes that are almost impossible to fully comprehend, one thing is sure: Escher believed in his own work. In moments of ecstasy, he even said that no one had ever created anything more beautiful and more important. Creating art was what Escher loved best, and he enjoyed making his dream worlds visible to the public. ‘‘I believe that making prints, as I do, is almost solely a question of being so passionate about it.’’

The Möbius strip II woodcut is named after the 19^th-century German mathematician and astronomer A.F. Möbius, who invented the loop. This strip is a highly complicated, seemingly impossible geometrical shape, in which the inside flows into the outside. Escher was intrigued by the idea of spectators looking at a shape they could not comprehend. To enhance this, Escher added red ants to the woodcut, which contribute to the illusion that the shape has two sides, making the Möbius strip look like an endless loop. This illusion of infinity is also symbolised by the 8-shape that one can discover in the print. In letters that Escher wrote to his son, the artist even joked about being stuck on the infinite Möbius strip.

The Möbius strip II woodcut is in many ways characteristic of Escher’s oeuvre. The artist’s broader work focuses on mathematical tenants including perspective, geometry, symmetry, optical illusions and the idea of infinity. Many of these themes recur in the Möbius strip II print, in which the artist plays with his spectator, offering fascinating and intriguing scenes and forms that one can hardly grasp.