Escher's "Waterfall". Mind games

2024 Author: Leah Sherlock | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 05:25

Optical illusions, mirages, tricks are the result of the imperfection of our perception or are these unique opportunities that we do not know how to use reasonably yet? What is more important: scrupulously reproducing reality or creating your own reality filled with riddles and paradoxes?

Don't believe your eyes

Not only nature throws us visual riddles in the form of mirages. Examples of optical paradoxes can be found on the canvases of the great masters of the past. For example, Pieter Brueghel's Magpie on the Gallows or William Hogarth's Frontispiece: A False Perspective Satire. Oskar Reutersvärd's fascination with optical tricks was the beginning of a new direction in the visual arts - imp art, the image of the impossible. An adherent of this trend, Maurits Escher, said:

To draw is to cheat.

He created a series of engravings and drawings, the main task of which was to mislead the viewer, make him doubt, think, immerse himself in a detailed examination of the image in order to unravel the secret hidden there.

Fun or science

Impossible is possible. Roger Penrose, a mathematician, published an article in 1958, where he collected a gallery of impossible figures and explained the features and principles of their representation. You can understand this using the example of Escher's "Waterfall":

1. Violation of the logic of space. The same, at first glance, the size of the tower, upon closer examination, they do not turn out to be.
2. Distortion of perspective. The channels through which water flows change their plane and angle of inclination from the direction of the gaze of the beholder.
3. Combination of everyday and fantasy elements in images. The traditional architecture of the house, the everyday figure of a woman hanging laundry, side by side with fantastic, alien plants in the front garden.

All this makes our brain build new associative connections, correct logical axioms, push the boundaries of reality. M. Escher's engravings arouse interest and admiration not only among fine art lovers, but also mathematicians and engineers.

Make a fairy tale come true

"Waterfall" by Escher Maurits is a challenge to everyday life, the collapse of stereotypes of our perception.

The desire to bring the impossible to life is a hallmark of humanity. And already dozens of "Kulibins" are creating working models of Escher's "Waterfall". So far, they are imperfect and raise many questions, but maybe the creation of an ideal perpetual motion machine is not far off, and someone will be able to build a reality that looks like a magical illusion.