M. C. Escher Quotes

As far as I know, there is no proof whatever of the existence of an objective reality apart from our senses, and I do not see why we should accept the outside world as such solely by virtue of our senses. These reality enthusiasts are possibly playing at hide-and-seek; at any rate they like to hide themselves, though they are not usually aware of it. They simply do it because they happen to have been born with a sense of reality, that is, with a great interest in so-called reality, and because man likes to forget himself.

I want to find happiness in the tiniest of things - a minute moss plant, 2 cm across, on a rock - and I want to try to do what I've been wanting to do for so long, that is, to copy these infinitesimally small things as precisely as possible and to be aware of their size.

The things I want to express are so beautiful and pure.

Coxeter also wrote a long mathematical explanation in his letter, which was beyond Escher's comprehension, as he remarked in a letter to George and Corrie.

Baarn, 28 May 1960: 'I had an enthusiastic letter from Coexter about my coloured fish, which I sent him. Three pages of explanation of what I actually did... It's a pity that I understand nothing, absolutely nothing of it...

version in original Dutch (origineel citaat van M.C. Escher, in het Nederlands): En als je nu bedenkt dat grote wiskundigen mijn werk interessant vinden, omdat ik in staat ben hun theorieën te illustreren. Ze kunnen zich helemaal niet voorstellen dat ik zo slecht was in wiskunde. Ik snap er zelf ook niets van. Ik begreep niet dat je iets moest bewijzen wat iedereen ziet. Ik zag het, ik wist, het is toch zo.. .Maar jawel hoor, je moest het bewijzen. Ik ben er bovenuit gekomen toen ik me realiseerde, dat ik wat anders kon. Ik dacht, dat ik een nietsnut was. Ik kom uit een milieu waar geen artiesten in waren.. ..Ik was een rare eend in de bijt, he?

I do indeed believe that there is a certain contrast between, say, people in scientific professions and people working in the arts. Often there is even mutual suspicion and irritation, and in some cases one group greatly undervalues the other. Fortunately there is no one who actually has only feeling or only thinking properties. They intermingle like the colors of the rainbow and cannot be sharply divided. Perhaps there is even a transitional group, like the green between the yellow and the blue of the rainbow. This transitional group does not have a particular preference for thinking or feeling, but believes that one cannot do without either the one or the other. At any rate, it is unprejudiced enough to wish for a better understanding between the two parties... It is clear that feeling and understanding are not necessarily opposites but that they complement each other.

version in original Dutch (origineel citaat van M.C. Escher, in het Nederlands): De onbekende bergnesten in het onherbergzame binnenland van Zuid-Calabrië zijn meestal slechts door een muilezelpad met den spoorweg, die vlak langs de kust loopt, verbonden: wie er heen wil, dient te voet te gaan zoo hij geen ezel tot zijn beschikking heeft. Ik denk terug aan dien warmen namiddag in de maand Mei toen wij met ons vieren, na een lange, vermoeiende tocht in de barre zon, bepakt met de zware last onzer rugzakken, zweetdruppelend en een beetje hijgend de stadspoort van Palizzi binnentraden..

So let us then try to climb the mountain, not by stepping on what is below us, but to pull us up at what is above us, for my part at the stars; amen.

To tell you the truth, I am rather perplexed about the concept of "art]. What one person considers to be "art" is often not "art" to another. "Beautiful" and "ugly" are old-fashioned concepts that are seldom applied these days; perhaps justifiably, who knows? Something repulsive, which gives you a moral hangover, and hurts your ears or eyes, may well be art. Only "kitsch" is not art — we're all agreed about that. Indeed, but what is "kitsch"? If only I knew!

Are you really sure that a floor can't also be a ceiling?

Sometimes, just before I fall asleep at night, I have a beautiful vision. In my imagination I see the earth floating like an enormous orange, stately and still, in the pure emptiness surrounding her. I see her slowly rotating, always lit up and warmed on one side by her mother, the sun. Ribbons and shreds of cloud float around her, and between these the seas and the multi-coloured continents, with their humid plains and snowy mountaintops, sparkle and shimmer. And I see the hot, yellow deserts and the frozen polar icecaps.
I am so far removed from the beautiful earth that the people scurrying around in their cities are of course no longer visible. Whether this is such a good thing as it seems to be at the time is open to question. But it is a fact that my vision is so beautiful, so restful and so full of peace that I usually fall asleep soon afterwards.
That is why this also seems to be the right moment to end my story, at least for today,

At moments of great enthusiasm it seems to me that no one in the world has ever made something this beautiful and important.

lf l am not mistaken, the words "art" and "artist" did not exist during the Renaissance and before: there were simply architects, sculptors, and painters, practicing a trade.

I was peculiarly moved by the angelic life growing on the ground. I have no idea what sorts of flowers grow there in profusion — I don’t know their names. But I was so moved that I sat down, trying to flatten as few grasses and plants as possible with my clumsy backside... This brought my head quite close to the silent, joyful, exuberant, celestial children of heaven. They are so humble, so quiet, and they do not mind if you observe them, if you think they are beautiful... Nor do they mind if you don’t look at all — they just stand there together all by themselves in the huge stretch of woods and grow and bloom just the same, peacefully, joyfully, and silently. I am absolutely sure that they know nothing of the swinish and filthy behaviour of people in their dirty stinking houses — they know only about heaven.

My work is a game, a very serious game.