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Maurits Cornelis Escher was born in Leeuwarden, Friesland in the Netherlands to a wealthy family. Maukie was a sickly child who did poorly in school. In fact, he had to repeat a grade and failed his final examinations for secondary school. The only class he did well in was drawing. He liked geometry because it engaged his imagination, but did poorly in that as well. Mauk played piano and learned carpentry. Later in life he would take up cello (which he didn’t excel at because he had small hands) and flute (which he wasn’t that good at because of his thin lips). In spite of his musical limitations, he was a lifelong lover of music and enjoyed going to classical concerts. As a teen he would practice cello by the light of a bulb rigged into a skull, keeping his family awake until 2 AM with his “caterwauling” on two strings (the others had broken).
At least one teacher appreciated Escher’s artistic skill and taught him the basics of linoleum printmaking. Later he would learn lithography (printing on stone) from an older artist who let Escher make prints on his press. When Mauk failed his final exams, he consoled himself by making a linoleum cut of a sunflower.
In spite of doing poorly in school, Esher was a great reader and was a book lover his whole life. He and his friends would recite poetry and prose out loud, and in later years Escher became quite good at lecturing about his own artwork. His father thought an architect would be a good occupation for his son, but it soon became clear he had no interest in or aptitude for that field. A sympathetic instructor, Samuel Jessurun de Mesquita, encouraged Escher to study decorative arts, which was obviously where his talents and interests lay. Escher gladly took this advice. Even though his parents were not thrilled, they supported his choice.
When he was twenty-four, Escher traveled to Italy and Spain with a friend. He fell in love with southern Europe, particularly Italy. The landscape, mild weather and warm people enchanted him. He found the region and culture suited him better than his native Holland. He took long walks, drawing as he went, feeling peaceful and full of joy. He drew bridges, towns, hillsides, the sea and flora. It was there he met his future wife Jetta, and where they eventually started a family together. They remained in Rome for twelve years. Both Escher’s and his wife’s family hoped he would settle down and get a more stable job, especially when Jetta and he began having children—three boys named Arthur, Giorgio and Jan. In secret Escher told a friend he would never do this: making art was his life. Luckily, in the end, both families were sympathetic to Escher’s desire to be an artist and they helped out with money, his father sending a monthly allowance. Escher had to always be frugal, but was never in real financial danger. Perhaps more difficult was enduring the subtle scorn his father doled out with his gifts of cash.
In spite of seeming like a paradisiacal haven, fascism was on the rise in Spain and Italy, and the political climate there was souring. In 1935 Escher moved his family to Switzerland, where his wife was from. The mountain air would be good for their son Arthur who had tuberculosis. Escher was not an overly demonstrative father, but did read to his children often and put on puppet shows at Christmas. He had a speaking tube the family would use to call him from his attic studio to dinner. Often he was so engrossed in his work that he’d come to dinner late. He was almost like a hermit at times. Escher said of himself he was “A lonely man who sat in his room most of the time.”
Throughout his career, Escher had varying degrees of success. He got good critical attention and some commissions to do work, but he often doubted himself and his art. He also had bouts of bad health and depression. When he felt blue, he would work on his prints and it would uplift his spirits. The forced move to Switzerland had made Escher miserable. He hated the cold and snow. The one print he made of the Swiss landscape he declared a failure—the land did not inspire him. His artistic lifeblood had been drawing the southern Italian hills, towns, sea and flora. Escher began looking inward for inspiration, and his interest in geometry and illusion came to the forefront. He started filling up pages with interlocking creatures and divided planes with geometric designs. To him, the straight lines of crystals were a direct connection to the beauty of nature. If he couldn’t be on a long walk drawing a landscape, he’d find another way to make contact. His illusions became more and more complex and uncanny; a house with stairs going in all directions, rigid architectural scenes warped by bumps and waves, fanciful creatures emerging out of mirrors or off of pages, two hands drawing each other. Black and white was his preferred realm, and with surgical precision and intelligence, he conveyed realism and illusion with equal finesse. The flights of fancy Escher conceived became his life’s work, and he did it in a way beyond compare—sometimes photo-realistic, sometimes graphic, sometimes like a dream.
In time, Escher and family moved to Belgium, then back to the Netherlands. Every day before he settled down to his art, he took a two hour walk in the woods to clear his mind and organize his thoughts and ideas. During the Nazi occupation Escher did not want to make art for or in any way work with the Germans, so his career was put on hold. His mentor and teacher de Mesquita, along with his wife and son, were arrested and later murdered in concentration camps. Escher organized an exhibition in their memory two years later. His world was one of fascination with and love of life and beauty. The horror of Nazi handiwork was a monstrosity beyond his comprehension.
In 1951, both Time and Life magazines featured articles about Escher and his work. His new subject matter struck a chord and the publicity it garnered changed the course of his life. Suddenly his prints were so sought after that Escher spent most of his time printing. Print-making is labor intensive work. The artist must first make the art itself on stone, metal, linoleum or wood. Once that work is perfected, the prints themselves must be made. Escher did not have an agent or studio assistants; he did all the work himself. He attended many speaking engagements and art shows. For a shy man who most enjoyed spending time chipping away at a complicated woodcut, this newfound fame was a double-edged sword. Escher appreciated the attention, success, and certainly the increase in income. But he lamented the loss of time to make new work. He was particularly pleased by the attention of crystallographers and mathematicians who had a special understanding of his geometric art. Escher’s marriage to Jetta eventually floundered. After her children were grown, she had no engaging occupation and became bored. Escher thought his delicate, perhaps neurotic wife just needed to “pull herself together.” Years of playing second fiddle to her husband’s art took its toll and Jetta went to live with her son in Switzerland.
In the last decade of his life, Escher often felt taxed by the pressures of his new-found success. He enjoyed giving lecturers and corresponding with many people, but he missed having time to just work on art. Escher also stewed about and lamented the horrible condition of humanity; to him the world was hopeless. He preferred to live among unreal abstractions. In 1962 he had a major stomach operation and his health never fully recovered. There were more operations in the decade to come (for what doctors presumed to be complications from cancer), and as Escher became weaker he was less able to make artwork. He said he didn’t fear death as long as it was without pain and “an almost imperceptible transition to nirvana.” He died at the age of seventy-three. His sons were with him in his final days, but polite and private to the last, he slipped away when they were not in the room. Three years earlier, he had made his final print Snakes, a tricolored woodcut no less remarkable and precise than his earlier work. Escher had always lamented the fact that art often falls short of the emotional vision of the artist. He once said, “I believe that, at bottom, every artist wants no more than to tell the world what he has to say.”
©2017 Alice DuBois
For More Information See:
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M._C._Escher
- "Meatamorphose" Documentary by Jan Bosdriesz
- "M.C. Escher : His Life And Complete Graphic Work" Abradale Press/Harry N. Abrams, Inc., 1992
- "The magic of M.C. Escher" By J.L. Locker, Harry N. Abrams, 2000
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