CH 29: Through the Eyes of Escher
It is quite likely that you have seen the work of M.C. Escher at some point. His art is fairly recognizable and typically involves impossible scenarios and tessellations (the tiling of a plane with no overlaps or gaps). He was very skilled at exploring paradoxes of space and geometry. He even wrote a paper on his mathematical approach to his artwork. He was able to bring more dimensions into the 2D of his canvas and explore ideas of infinity in his art, which resulted in very visually surprising effects, such as a river that seems to flow upward. He was an expert at playing with our ideas of perspective, his first print; titled "Still Life and Street" depicts a table with books and items that blend seamlessly in with a street scene. Even though he did not have formal mathematical training as such, he had an incredible intuition about the visual nature of mathematics and the paradoxes that can occur. It is rather surprising that there are not many more examples of similar paradoxical artwork.
