M.C. Escher

• Go back to About Me
• 回到我的簡介
• 藝術家背景資料 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M._C._Escher

REGARDING“ASCENDING AND DESCENDING”(Artwork by M. C. Escher, 1960)

by Jeanette Lin, May, 2007

WHAT IS IT
I went to an exhibition titled "M. C. Escher: Rhythm of Illusion" at San Jose Museum of Art on February 18, 2007.

I actually have not heard of this artist's name before, but he must be very famous because there was such a big turnout in the museum. I learned that he was an important leader in the form of Optical Art, and he was Dutch and lived from 1898 to 1972.

One work struck me the most is the one titled Ascending and Descending.

It is a small-scale black and white (or gray scale) print (ink and paper as media) of a bird's eye view of a multi-level building with people marching up and down steps around the courtyard of the roof. The artist used a technique called Lithograph.

HOW DOES IT MAKE ME FEEL?
At first glance it looks like a precise and complicated architectural drawing of an old monastery or a historical building with a number of gabbles, arched doors, windows, and steps. I was amazed at the wide-angle view and its 3D effect, and was intrigued by the marching of many little faceless figures on the rooftop.

I wondered what were they doing there, why, and who were they? The two rows of opposite facing people seemed like from the Middle Age, wearing armor and helmets; on the other hand, they seemed like many identical robots from the modern day marching in a loop. But could it be so simple?

I was curious about what the illusion was about, so I stood there, looking at the picture over and over again. I chose a point, and followed the 14 figures in the outer square marching up the stairs, and then I followed the 12 figures in the inner ring going downstairs.

I was anxious and puzzled because everything seemed logical. I have had many similar experiences of passing by a stranger walking at the opposite direction. Finally, I got the answer and felt a sense of awe and amusingly surprised!

HOW IS THE WORK STRUCTURED?
The picture plane is vertically oriented with very little negative space, and it is especially divided by a diagonal axes vertically inclined from upper right to lower left. Its focal point lies in the rectangular courtyard of the building located on the top area of the plane. The building is viewed from the air as a bird's eye view. It gives a 3-D illusion by including the Sagittal axis to create the depth, and by using different tones, such as highlights and shadows, in the achromatic image.

The artist used a lot of hard-edged, precise, restrained lines to create the geometric shapes of arch (doors), rectangle (windows, stairs), square (roofs, windows), and triangle motifs. Another major motif is the identical faceless robotic human figures.

I am not sure about the symmetry part of this work. The overall single building seems to be asymmetric, but we can see the translational symmetry in the human figures. The building complex appears to be massive, strong and grand with several rooms or sections combined and it has fancy architectural details such as pillars and arches.

CONTEXTS
According to the biography by Taschen in a book titled M.C. Escher, Escher was influenced by an article by Roger Primrose about "impossible objects".

It says, "This inspired him to produce the famous Ascending and Descending, which is based on the endless stairway described in the article." (p.20)

As I mentioned earlier, I have not heard of this artist before. Interestingly enough, I took a computer class last semester, and the teacher introduced us to the concept of Op. Art.

She asked us to make one-inch grids to fill the whole page, and then the progressive grids of different sizes and shapes. Suddenly, the image can change into various "illusions", such as 3-D, or bending, waving effects. Besides being amused, I can add this technique into my own creative toolbox.

WHAT DOES IT MEAN?
If the idea of "impossible object" is indeed the inspiration, I suppose the key lies with the impossible "reality" that the human figures marching upstairs and the people marching downstairs meet at the same spot.

The people are faceless and robotic, as if they are doing some military drills, with the exception of two "run-away" figures. One is located at the left side of the plane, his body leaning against the fence of the third-level balcony, either looking at the sky or the marching people. The second figure sits on the stairs facing the right side of the plane, and nobody knows what he or she is looking at or thinking about.

Is it possible that they are actually the same one individual? Like each of us, we do the same routines over and over like climbing stairs. We may want to believe we are making progress, but we actually go back to the same spot.

Sometimes we are tired of this routine, and then we might detach ourselves to take a more objective view of our lives and others from a distance.

Or sometimes we just want to go back to our own inner world. It may seem motionless but it is actually very powerful and "productive" than the seemly business and purposeless motion.

It provokes my own examining of my own life and thus I feel expanded and connected.