A Little Bit About Maurice Cornelius Escher

on Dec 19, 2025

By clicking submit, I authorize Arcamax and its affiliates to: (1) use, sell, and share my information for marketing purposes, including cross-context behavioral advertising, as described in our Privacy Policy , (2) add to information that I provide with other information like interests inferred from web page views, or data lawfully obtained from data brokers, such as past purchase or location data, or publicly available data, (3) contact me or enable others to contact me by email or other means with offers for different types of goods and services, and (4) retain my information while I am engaging with marketing messages that I receive and for a reasonable amount of time thereafter. I understand I can opt out at any time through an email that I receive, or by clicking here

One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish

Maurice Cornelius Escher, known to his friends and family as Mauk, was initially set to be an architect. He was to attend the Higher Technical School in Delft. But, his plans went asunder when he failed his final exams in nearly all of his classes including history, constitutional organization, political economy and bookkeeping. His father later noted that Mauk drew and created a linocut of a sunflower to comfort himself after the blunder.

No Apt Pupil

He was later able to retake the exams and entered the school in Delft. It was here that Professor R.N. Roland Holst encouraged him to try his hand at woodcuts and engraving versus architecture. The legendary art of MC Escher had achieved its planting.

The Creature In The Forest

Not wanting to disappoint his parents, Mauk continued with architectural studies. However with poor grades Mauk had to find another school in order to do so. He made a last ditch attempt at it at the School for Architecture and Decorative Arts. Then a chance meeting occurred with Samuel Jesserum de Mesquita, a graphic arts teacher. It was a red-letter day for MC Escher aka Mauk. De Mesquita convinced him that he would be much better suited for a career in graphic arts than architecture.

Head In The Clouds

Where and when did Escher begin his methodical approach to his life and art? Well, as a child Mauk had an intensely acute sense of wonder. And like many children he would lie on his back and gaze to the sky, seeing shapes in the clouds. With the strong influence from his parents engineering background, it is no wonder then that young Mauk began to see how these free floating shapes could evolve and dissolve in the white pillowy vapor. Tactile applications began to form in his mind making logic out of random chaos.

The Puzzler

He was often frustrated with his lack of drawing ability and regarded his mathematical prowess as insecure at best. However he developed his own categorization system that covered all the possible combinations of shape, color and symmetrical properties. By doing so, he had unknowingly studied areas of crystallography for many years. This was the groundwork for his patterns, known as tessellations. Tessellate: to construct, pave, or decorate something with small pieces such as stone or glass in order to give a mosaic effect.

To read more articles by Chad Koch, visit the American Pop Culture Encyclopedia at: American Pop Culture Encyclopedia.

If you would like to read this article, or others like it, on American Pop Culture Encyclopedia, please visit: MC Escher

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Chad_Koch