MC Escher

MC Escher was a major figure in art for his unique style and new take on art. His art
was highly mathematical and used a lot of geometry. He pushed the idea of using
geometry to its limits and drew many artworks that are extremely hard to
comprehend due to their excessive use of mathematical concepts.
Tessellations were a major part of some of his artworks and they usually involved
two major shapes which would seamlessly blend two sections of the artwork. Usually
he would try to convey the idea of opposites and many of his artworks that used
tessellations to act as a transition between two parts of the drawing would feature
opposites on either side of the tessellation.
This can be seen with the idea of dark and light in his artwork ‘night and day’ where
the same setting is shown at different times of the day.
He also uses tessellations as a transition between a crisp and concise drawing and
abstraction in another of his artworks.

MC Escher also toyed with the idea of infinity in many of his artworks. Being
fascinated with the idea that a never-ending set of something could exist, he began
incorporating the idea into his artworks which led to him creating tessellations inside
circles, with the shapes shrinking in size as they approached the border of the circle.
This led him to create the artworks shown below.
The final way MC Escher used math in his artworks is by creating confusing artworks
where physics was commonly defied and causing immense confusion as to what
was going on in the artwork. He used illusions to a great extent in these artworks and
as such this art was known as op art.
Below are a few examples of MC Escher using optical illusions in his artworks.

All in all, MC Escher is a prime example of an artist using mathematics in his

artworks. Having read extensively on mathematical concepts and consulting famous
mathematicians, the fact that MC Escher was obsessed with mathematics cannot be
denied. While denying any claims that he acted extremely similarly to a regular
mathematician, most people agree that his thought process closely matched that of a
mathematician, showing his devotion to both mathematics and art.
As such, his artworks are one of the best examples of mathematics being used in
art.