M.C. Escher: Journey to Infinity.<\/h2><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/span><\/span><\/span>![](\"data:image\/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAAAAACH5BAEKAAEALAAAAAABAAEAAAICTAEAOw==\")
<\/span><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>M.C. Escher: Journey to Infinity<\/h2><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>M.C. Escher: Journey to Infinity<\/strong><\/p>\nA review by Matt Zoller Seitz, \u00a0<\/strong>February 10, 2021.<\/p>\nDocumentaries about\u00a0visual artists tend to be so boringly conceived\u2014talk about the life, show a picture, talk about the life, show another picture\u2014that you may not realize what you’ve been missing until you see one\u00a0as excellent as\u00a0“M.C.\u00a0Escher:\u00a0Journey to Infinity.”<\/p>\n
Written and directed by Robin Lutz, this is a rare feature that takes the trouble not just to understand its subject and communicate his significance, but find ways to\u00a0show<\/em>\u00a0us, visually,\u00a0how his style evolved, and the principles behind that evolution.<\/p>\nThe tale\u00a0begins with the standard-issue “This is a movie about a great artist, here are a few summary details about his life and art,” with some landscape and architecture shots and images of Escher’s work.\u00a0Then it becomes increasingly daring and fanciful, yet always remaining\u00a0in service to the M.C.\u00a0Escher, the Dutch draftsman and printmaker whose art became internationally famous during the post-World War II era.<\/p>\n
Escher was a rare artist who managed to combine his influences into something\u00a0genuinely new.\u00a0His work is a\u00a0geometric\/mathematical surrealist vision of the objectively perceivable\u00a0world, but also a\u00a0subjective\u00a0interior, evoking ancient Arabic-North\u00a0African\u00a0graphics; the Salvador Dali-Pablo Picasso-Georges Braque anti-realist sensibilities of the ’20s and ’30s, and computer models that would not\u00a0become popular until decades after Escher\u2019s own experiments.<\/p>\n
Lutz and his collaborators, including a team of graphic designers and animators, make Escher’s art come to life in surprising and amusing ways, from having one of his trademark salamanders appear in an otherwise “realistic”\u00a0frame and travel across increasingly “unreal”\u00a0panoramas until we’re in an Escher print, to re-imagining intricately patterned Escher artworks so that we seem to glide along them, or into them\/through them. This happens\u00a0slowly enough so that we can appreciate how deftly the artist translated negative space into positive space, in ways that made the distinction seem arbitrary:\u00a0for instance,\u00a0the black spaces between joined silhouettes of lizards or amphibians might become black birds with white spaces between them, then go\u00a0back again. Or people and animals might move along one stretch of diagonal stairs and jump to\u00a0another, seeming to go upside down or sideways, in defiance of gravity,\u00a0emphasizing the brain-teasing techniques Escher perfected.<\/p>\n
Lutz and his team have found a cinematic analogy for\u00a0the movement of the eye over static pictorial art reproduced in a book or hanging on a museum wall. The movie is\u00a0especially good at evoking\u00a0that “wow”\u00a0moment when you realize that a thing you were looking at\u00a0has turned into\u00a0another<\/em>\u00a0thing. It’s explaining the magic trick without ruining the magic, a magic trick of a different sort.<\/p>\nThis approach is so\u00a0dazzling that one wishes the filmmakers had\u00a0pushed it\u00a0a bit further, deploying it even\u00a0more often, or in more and subtler\u00a0variations\u2014perhaps\u00a0figuring out a way to have the film itself flip back on itself structurally\u00a0at key points, or end precisely where it started, so that the project itself\u00a0seemed to have no\u00a0beginning or end. (There’s a hint of this, but not much\u00a0more.)<\/p>\n
Musician Graham Nash, a devotee of Escher who contacted him late in his life, says Escher dismissed\u00a0the idea that he was an artist. Throughout the movie, we hear Escher align himself with scientists and mathematicians, often trashing his own skills as a representational draftsman and speaking of his heroes and colleagues with awe.<\/p>\n
This isn’t to say that Escher\u00a0was down on himself at all times,\u00a0or that that he entirely rejected the notion he was making art. Escher’s letters, performed in voice-over\u00a0by actor Stephen Fry, make it clear that he challenged himself to improve his abilities and expand his vision and grew irritable when stuck in a groove.\u00a0And yet\u00a0there was always\u00a0a sense\u2014particularly once Escher hit his forties and realized he was indeed a global phenomenon\u2014that a “real” artist wouldn’t be as entertaining.\u00a0This is the world’s misconception, not Escher’s, but it’s still\u00a0a shame that he let himself feel diminished\u00a0by it.\u00a0There’s power and profundity in Escher’s art, yet the\u00a0puzzle-box aspect is what pulls you into\u00a0it.<\/p>\n
The movie makes a case that we should talk about Escher the way we talk about one of his inspirations,\u00a0Johann Sebastian Bach, who like Escher was\u00a0clever as well as\u00a0substantive.\u00a0Escher earned the comparison. Why do we\u00a0resist it?\u00a0Perhaps there’s still something in us, even this late into\u00a0human development, that worries that if you’re having fun, it can’t be art. Escher struggled with that misconception, too,\u00a0right up to the end.<\/p>\n
Now playing in virtual theatre.<\/p>\n
Matt Zoller Seitz is the Editor at Large of RogerEbert.com, TV critic for New York Magazine and Vulture.com, and a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in criticism. Original article on rogerebert.com<\/a>
\n<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>Biography<\/p>\n<\/div>
<\/div><\/div><\/div>M.C.Escher<\/h3><\/div>
![](\"https:\/\/\/\/test.mcescher.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/02\/s276.jpg\")
<\/span><\/div>M.C. Escher: Journey to Infinity<\/h2><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>M.C. Escher: Journey to Infinity<\/strong><\/p>\nA review by Matt Zoller Seitz, \u00a0<\/strong>February 10, 2021.<\/p>\nDocumentaries about\u00a0visual artists tend to be so boringly conceived\u2014talk about the life, show a picture, talk about the life, show another picture\u2014that you may not realize what you’ve been missing until you see one\u00a0as excellent as\u00a0“M.C.\u00a0Escher:\u00a0Journey to Infinity.”<\/p>\n
Written and directed by Robin Lutz, this is a rare feature that takes the trouble not just to understand its subject and communicate his significance, but find ways to\u00a0show<\/em>\u00a0us, visually,\u00a0how his style evolved, and the principles behind that evolution.<\/p>\nThe tale\u00a0begins with the standard-issue “This is a movie about a great artist, here are a few summary details about his life and art,” with some landscape and architecture shots and images of Escher’s work.\u00a0Then it becomes increasingly daring and fanciful, yet always remaining\u00a0in service to the M.C.\u00a0Escher, the Dutch draftsman and printmaker whose art became internationally famous during the post-World War II era.<\/p>\n
Escher was a rare artist who managed to combine his influences into something\u00a0genuinely new.\u00a0His work is a\u00a0geometric\/mathematical surrealist vision of the objectively perceivable\u00a0world, but also a\u00a0subjective\u00a0interior, evoking ancient Arabic-North\u00a0African\u00a0graphics; the Salvador Dali-Pablo Picasso-Georges Braque anti-realist sensibilities of the ’20s and ’30s, and computer models that would not\u00a0become popular until decades after Escher\u2019s own experiments.<\/p>\n
Lutz and his collaborators, including a team of graphic designers and animators, make Escher’s art come to life in surprising and amusing ways, from having one of his trademark salamanders appear in an otherwise “realistic”\u00a0frame and travel across increasingly “unreal”\u00a0panoramas until we’re in an Escher print, to re-imagining intricately patterned Escher artworks so that we seem to glide along them, or into them\/through them. This happens\u00a0slowly enough so that we can appreciate how deftly the artist translated negative space into positive space, in ways that made the distinction seem arbitrary:\u00a0for instance,\u00a0the black spaces between joined silhouettes of lizards or amphibians might become black birds with white spaces between them, then go\u00a0back again. Or people and animals might move along one stretch of diagonal stairs and jump to\u00a0another, seeming to go upside down or sideways, in defiance of gravity,\u00a0emphasizing the brain-teasing techniques Escher perfected.<\/p>\n
Lutz and his team have found a cinematic analogy for\u00a0the movement of the eye over static pictorial art reproduced in a book or hanging on a museum wall. The movie is\u00a0especially good at evoking\u00a0that “wow”\u00a0moment when you realize that a thing you were looking at\u00a0has turned into\u00a0another<\/em>\u00a0thing. It’s explaining the magic trick without ruining the magic, a magic trick of a different sort.<\/p>\nThis approach is so\u00a0dazzling that one wishes the filmmakers had\u00a0pushed it\u00a0a bit further, deploying it even\u00a0more often, or in more and subtler\u00a0variations\u2014perhaps\u00a0figuring out a way to have the film itself flip back on itself structurally\u00a0at key points, or end precisely where it started, so that the project itself\u00a0seemed to have no\u00a0beginning or end. (There’s a hint of this, but not much\u00a0more.)<\/p>\n
Musician Graham Nash, a devotee of Escher who contacted him late in his life, says Escher dismissed\u00a0the idea that he was an artist. Throughout the movie, we hear Escher align himself with scientists and mathematicians, often trashing his own skills as a representational draftsman and speaking of his heroes and colleagues with awe.<\/p>\n
This isn’t to say that Escher\u00a0was down on himself at all times,\u00a0or that that he entirely rejected the notion he was making art. Escher’s letters, performed in voice-over\u00a0by actor Stephen Fry, make it clear that he challenged himself to improve his abilities and expand his vision and grew irritable when stuck in a groove.\u00a0And yet\u00a0there was always\u00a0a sense\u2014particularly once Escher hit his forties and realized he was indeed a global phenomenon\u2014that a “real” artist wouldn’t be as entertaining.\u00a0This is the world’s misconception, not Escher’s, but it’s still\u00a0a shame that he let himself feel diminished\u00a0by it.\u00a0There’s power and profundity in Escher’s art, yet the\u00a0puzzle-box aspect is what pulls you into\u00a0it.<\/p>\n
The movie makes a case that we should talk about Escher the way we talk about one of his inspirations,\u00a0Johann Sebastian Bach, who like Escher was\u00a0clever as well as\u00a0substantive.\u00a0Escher earned the comparison. Why do we\u00a0resist it?\u00a0Perhaps there’s still something in us, even this late into\u00a0human development, that worries that if you’re having fun, it can’t be art. Escher struggled with that misconception, too,\u00a0right up to the end.<\/p>\n
Now playing in virtual theatre.<\/p>\n
Matt Zoller Seitz is the Editor at Large of RogerEbert.com, TV critic for New York Magazine and Vulture.com, and a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in criticism. Original article on rogerebert.com<\/a>
\n<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>Biography<\/p>\n<\/div>
<\/div><\/div><\/div>M.C.Escher<\/h3><\/div>
M.C. Escher: Journey to Infinity<\/strong><\/p>\n A review by Matt Zoller Seitz, \u00a0<\/strong>February 10, 2021.<\/p>\n Documentaries about\u00a0visual artists tend to be so boringly conceived\u2014talk about the life, show a picture, talk about the life, show another picture\u2014that you may not realize what you’ve been missing until you see one\u00a0as excellent as\u00a0“M.C.\u00a0Escher:\u00a0Journey to Infinity.”<\/p>\n Written and directed by Robin Lutz, this is a rare feature that takes the trouble not just to understand its subject and communicate his significance, but find ways to\u00a0show<\/em>\u00a0us, visually,\u00a0how his style evolved, and the principles behind that evolution.<\/p>\n The tale\u00a0begins with the standard-issue “This is a movie about a great artist, here are a few summary details about his life and art,” with some landscape and architecture shots and images of Escher’s work.\u00a0Then it becomes increasingly daring and fanciful, yet always remaining\u00a0in service to the M.C.\u00a0Escher, the Dutch draftsman and printmaker whose art became internationally famous during the post-World War II era.<\/p>\n Escher was a rare artist who managed to combine his influences into something\u00a0genuinely new.\u00a0His work is a\u00a0geometric\/mathematical surrealist vision of the objectively perceivable\u00a0world, but also a\u00a0subjective\u00a0interior, evoking ancient Arabic-North\u00a0African\u00a0graphics; the Salvador Dali-Pablo Picasso-Georges Braque anti-realist sensibilities of the ’20s and ’30s, and computer models that would not\u00a0become popular until decades after Escher\u2019s own experiments.<\/p>\n Lutz and his collaborators, including a team of graphic designers and animators, make Escher’s art come to life in surprising and amusing ways, from having one of his trademark salamanders appear in an otherwise “realistic”\u00a0frame and travel across increasingly “unreal”\u00a0panoramas until we’re in an Escher print, to re-imagining intricately patterned Escher artworks so that we seem to glide along them, or into them\/through them. This happens\u00a0slowly enough so that we can appreciate how deftly the artist translated negative space into positive space, in ways that made the distinction seem arbitrary:\u00a0for instance,\u00a0the black spaces between joined silhouettes of lizards or amphibians might become black birds with white spaces between them, then go\u00a0back again. Or people and animals might move along one stretch of diagonal stairs and jump to\u00a0another, seeming to go upside down or sideways, in defiance of gravity,\u00a0emphasizing the brain-teasing techniques Escher perfected.<\/p>\n Lutz and his team have found a cinematic analogy for\u00a0the movement of the eye over static pictorial art reproduced in a book or hanging on a museum wall. The movie is\u00a0especially good at evoking\u00a0that “wow”\u00a0moment when you realize that a thing you were looking at\u00a0has turned into\u00a0another<\/em>\u00a0thing. It’s explaining the magic trick without ruining the magic, a magic trick of a different sort.<\/p>\n This approach is so\u00a0dazzling that one wishes the filmmakers had\u00a0pushed it\u00a0a bit further, deploying it even\u00a0more often, or in more and subtler\u00a0variations\u2014perhaps\u00a0figuring out a way to have the film itself flip back on itself structurally\u00a0at key points, or end precisely where it started, so that the project itself\u00a0seemed to have no\u00a0beginning or end. (There’s a hint of this, but not much\u00a0more.)<\/p>\n Musician Graham Nash, a devotee of Escher who contacted him late in his life, says Escher dismissed\u00a0the idea that he was an artist. Throughout the movie, we hear Escher align himself with scientists and mathematicians, often trashing his own skills as a representational draftsman and speaking of his heroes and colleagues with awe.<\/p>\n This isn’t to say that Escher\u00a0was down on himself at all times,\u00a0or that that he entirely rejected the notion he was making art. Escher’s letters, performed in voice-over\u00a0by actor Stephen Fry, make it clear that he challenged himself to improve his abilities and expand his vision and grew irritable when stuck in a groove.\u00a0And yet\u00a0there was always\u00a0a sense\u2014particularly once Escher hit his forties and realized he was indeed a global phenomenon\u2014that a “real” artist wouldn’t be as entertaining.\u00a0This is the world’s misconception, not Escher’s, but it’s still\u00a0a shame that he let himself feel diminished\u00a0by it.\u00a0There’s power and profundity in Escher’s art, yet the\u00a0puzzle-box aspect is what pulls you into\u00a0it.<\/p>\n The movie makes a case that we should talk about Escher the way we talk about one of his inspirations,\u00a0Johann Sebastian Bach, who like Escher was\u00a0clever as well as\u00a0substantive.\u00a0Escher earned the comparison. Why do we\u00a0resist it?\u00a0Perhaps there’s still something in us, even this late into\u00a0human development, that worries that if you’re having fun, it can’t be art. Escher struggled with that misconception, too,\u00a0right up to the end.<\/p>\n Now playing in virtual theatre.<\/p>\n Matt Zoller Seitz is the Editor at Large of RogerEbert.com, TV critic for New York Magazine and Vulture.com, and a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in criticism. Original article on rogerebert.com<\/a> Biography<\/p>\n<\/div>
\n<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>M.C.Escher<\/h3><\/div>