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...continued from Part 1

In a letter to his son in April of 1969 Escher wrote, "The hippies of San Francisco continue to print my work illegally. I received some of the grisly results through a friendly customer over there. Among other things, such as virulently coloured posters, I was sent a forty-eight-page programme or catalogue of the so-called 'Midpeninsula Free University', Menlo Park, California. It included three reproductions of my prints alternating with photographs of seductive naked girls."

Originals of the reproductions he mentioned still exist today and a selection of them hang in the blacklight room of the Escher In... exhibitions which travel around the country.

The tone of the paragraph leads one to believe Escher wasn't keen at all on manipulations or disrespect of his art. Yet he was very pleased to see so many people as captivated by his drawings as he was. What would he possibly think about someone wearing a black light Relativity T-shirt!?

I suppose he would have approved after a time. In many of his writings he indicates his pleasure at others' enjoyment of his passions. It would only be a small step to accepting what he described as 'virulently coloured'. Particularly when those colorations accentuate the mathematical concepts he tries to convey.

It leads to the question, could he ever have conceived, of one day being so popular that people would bring his art to life by walking around with his images boldly worn across their bodies. I don't think he would have, he was much too humble. I do believe though that he would have approved. He wrote to his son Arthur in February of 1955, "God, I wish I could learn to draw better! It takes so much effort and perserverance to do it well. Sometimes I am close to delirium with pure nerves. It is really only a question of battling on relentlessly with constant and, if possible, merciless self-criticism. I think that making prints the way I do it is almost only a matter of very much wanting to do it well. For the most part, things like talent are mere poppycock. Any schoolboy with a bit of aptitude might draw better than I; but what is usually lacking is the unwavering desire for expression, obstinacy gnashing its teeth and saying, 'Even though I know I cannot do it, I still want to do it.'"

Escher spent most of the latter part of his life in close association with the leading mathematicians and theorists of the day. Could the topic of computing over the phone lines ever have come up? In March of 1961 Escher gave a lecture to the Rotary Club in Baarn Holland, in it he recounted his passion for sea voyages and his observations during them. He said, "I believe that people nowadays villify the 'good name' of the earth more than they used to do. They travel around her in their irritating aeroplanes and insult her by suggesting that she is smaller than she used to be. 'The world has become small' is the stupid, arrogant phrase of the businessman sitting in his aeroplane. He flies so high above the clouds that he sees and experiences nothing. In Montreal he gets into a sort of hollow cigar, sits down in an armchair, and as he is shot into the air like a projectile and hurtled forward by roaring jet engines above the invisible sea, he is bored to death if he does not eat or sleep. Less than seven hours later they put him back down on the ground at Schipol. Seven hours is still far too long for this journey, even though you have crossed the whole Atlantic Ocean. It is all a waste of time for someone who is busy. I think it's about time KLM started flying a bit faster."

Can you imagine Escher's thoughts on one's ability to sit at his table in Rome and by typing a few keys and making a local phone call have the ability to access the thoughts, the writings, the files, and actually conduct discussions with someone in Vancouver, all in the matter of a minute or two.

What in the world would he think about these bits you are reading now? The artwork and writings you look at here have no mass, you can't touch or feel them. He took great pains and pride picking his materials to work with and publish his work, here there are only bits. On many of his prints we see the phrase 'eigen druk' or own printing, the literal translation is 'this print is drawn with my own hands'. He would add that to the corner near his signature. He worked hard and long producing his prints for the public that enjoyed them so much. At one point he even reluctantly raised his prices in some effort to slow down sales. He wanted to get back to creating, not strictly producing.

Could the viewer really appreciate the intricate, astounding techniques used in the woodcut 'Concentric Rinds', if the original woodblock didn't exist and all that was to be seen were bits arranged on a screen?

No doubt he would favor the computing medium for discussions and thought, he was a frequent writer to his children and his colleagues. During his life the only methods available to him for corresponding were telephones and postal services. Although I'm not sure if such immediate response would be a good thing or bad thing in his mind.

Would he have chosen the avenue of arranging bits in order to reproduce and share his creative, complex and insightful ideas as they were shown in his prints?

I don't think so, do you?

Tom Litchfield