(* Suggestion: The present post is best viewed under the influence
of a tangerine dream ... *)
Maurits Cornelis Escher was one of the most influential graphic artists of the modern times. He is greatly adored by people involved in applied sciences, mostly because his aesthetics capture a little bit of the magic that we see in engineering and architectural drawings. And indeed, his father happened to be a civil engineer, possibly playing a major role to his son's initial inspiration.
The grotesque drawings of this Dutch artist can be grouped into several categories, with respect to the visual effects that they demonstrate. Some drawings for example exhibit an unnatural circular kind of perspective that tricks the human eye:
Other drawings demonstrate the use of very uncommon tiling that involves lizards,fish,birds or other creatures:
And, of course, abundant is the high art of geometry:
As the Netherlands is a country that shows respect to its artists, there is a museum exclusively devoted to the works of Escher, the Escher's museum situated at Den Haag. Whenever you have the time to escape from the greyness of Eindhoven, we would definitely suggest that you visit the beautiful technocratic city of The Hague and its Escher museum. And thus pay your tribute to this avant-garde artist.
Before closing this post we have to mention that there exists an artefact that associates Escher with Eindhoven. More precisely, there is a creation of Escher which happens to be part of the academic history of the city. So here's how the story goes:
In 1944, World War II was reaching to its end as the allies were marching towards Germany. In the second half of this year the southern part of the Netherlands was liberated, including Eindhoven. But it took some more time and effort to liberate the northern part, which actually happened by May 5th of 1945. In the period that spanned between the liberation of the country's South and North, it happened that all the important universities where situated at the part that was occupied by the Germans. So there had to be done something for all those people that wanted to study in the free part. Because Phillips industry was already in Eindhoven by then, there were quite enough scientists there that eventually formed a small academy the Temporary Academy of Eindhoven (Tijdelijke Academie Eindhoven).
This academy served in educating the students in the free South for this short period of time. It dissolved by December 1945. To commemorate this endeavour, Escher was asked to create a wooden plaque for the professors of the academy.
This though never made it to the hands of the graduates. Either way, the plaque remains among with its beautiful implications: The owl is the sacred bird of Athena, the ancient Greek Goddess of wisdom. There appear also broken chains, an implication of liberation. The other side of the river depicts the occupied part of the country with smoke coming from the cities that were bombed (or maybe because there the war still continues).
Note that this short lived academy existed before TU/E was founded. So could it be considered as its rightful ancestor? Could then Escher be considered as the creator of the first diploma ever made for this institute? ;)
