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To Tell You The Truth, I Am Rather Perplexed By The Concept Of 'art'. What One Person Considers To Be 'art' Is Often Not 'art' To Another. 'beautiful' And 'ugly' Are Old-fashioned Concepts That Are Seldom Applied These Days; Perhaps Justifiably, Who Knows? Something Repulsive, Which Gives You A Moral Hangover, And Hurts Your Ears Or Eyes, May Well Be Art. Only 'kitsch' Is Not Art - We're All Agreed About That. Indeed, But What Is 'kitsch'? If Only I Knew!

-M. C. Escher

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To Tell You The

M. C. Escher

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To Tell You The Truth, I Am Rather Perplexed By The Concept Of 'art'. What One Person Considers To Be 'art' Is Often Not 'art' To Another. 'beautiful' And 'ugly' Are Old-fashioned Concepts That Are Seldom Applied These Days; Perhaps Justifiably, Who Knows? Something Repulsive, Which Gives You A Moral Hangover, And Hurts Your Ears Or Eyes, May Well Be Art. Only 'kitsch' Is Not Art - We're All Agreed About That. Indeed, But What Is 'kitsch'? If Only I Knew!

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My Work Is A Game, A Very Serious Game.

I Could Fill An Entire Second Life With Working On My Prints.

I Think I Have Never Yet Done Any Work With The Aim Of Symbolizing A Particular Idea, But The Fact That A Symbol Is Sometimes Discovered Or Remarked Upon Is Valuable For Me Because It Makes It Easier To Accept The Inexplicable Nature Of My Hobbies, Which Constantly Preoccupy Me.

Drawing Is Deception.

I Try In My Prints To Testify That We Live In A Beautiful And Orderly World, Not In A Chaos Without Norms, Even Though That Is How It Sometimes Appears. My Subjects Are Also Often Playful: I Cannot Refrain From Demonstrating The Nonsensicalness Of Some Of What We Take To Be Irrefutable Certainties. It Is, For Example, A Pleasure To Deliberately Mix Together Objects Of Two And Three Dimensions, Surface And Spatial Relationships, And To Make Fun Of Gravity.

There Is Something Breathtaking About The Basic Laws Of Crystals. They Are In No Sense A Discovery Of The Human Mind; They Just "are" - They Exist Quite Independently Of Us. The Most That Man Can Do Is Become Aware, In A Moment Of Clarity, That They Are There, And Take Cognizance Of Them.

Originality Is Merely An Illusion.

The Things I Want To Express Are So Beautiful And Pure.

What I Give Form To In Daylight Is Only One Per Cent Of What I Have Seen In Darkness.

So Let Us Then Try To Climb The Mountain, Not By Stepping On What Is Below Us, But To Pull Us Up At What Is Above Us, For My Part At The Stars; Amen.

Are You Really Sure That A Floor Can't Also Be A Ceiling?

I Believe That Producing Pictures, As I Do, Is Almost Solely A Question Of Wanting So Very Much To Do It Well.

Only Those Who Attempt The Absurd Will Achieve The Impossible. I Think It's In My Basement... Let Me Go Upstairs And Check.

The Regular Division Of The Plane Into Congruent Figures Evoking An Association In The Observer With A Familiar Natural Object Is One Of These Hobbies Or Problems...i Have Embarked On This Geometric Problem Again And Again Over The Years, Trying To Throw Light On Different Aspects Each Time. I Cannot Imagine What My Life Would Be Like If This Problem Had Never Occurred To Me; One Might Say That I Am Head Over Heels In Love With It, And I Still Don't Know Why.

All My Works Are Games, Serious Game.

If I Am Not Mistaken, The Word "art" And "artist" Did Not Exist During The Renaissance And Before: There Were Simply Architects, Sculptors, And Painters, Practicing A Trade.

Wonder Is The Salt Of The Earth.

There Is Something In Such Laws That Takes The Breath Away. They Are Not Discoveries Or Inventions Of The Human Mind, But Exist Independently Of Us. In A Moment Of Clarity, One Can At Most Discover That They Are There And Take Them Into Account. Long Before There Were People On The Earth, Crystals Were Already Growing In The Earth's Crust. On One Day Or Another, A Human Being First Came Across Such A Sparkling Morsel Of Regularity Lying On The Ground Or Hit One With His Stone Tool And It Broke Off And Fell At His Feet, And He Picked It Up And Regarded It In His Open Hand, And He Was Amazed.

A Woman Once Rang Me Up And Said, 'mr. Escher, I Am Absolutely Crazy About Your Work. In Your Print -reptiles- You Have Given Such A Striking Illustration Of Reincarnation.' I Replied, 'madam, If That's The Way You See It, So Be It.'

I Am Myself: A Light. In Me You Find Your Fate. So Be Not Blind To The Truth Shining From My Glow.

We Adore Chaos Because We Love To Produce Order.

Order Is Repetition Of Units. Chaos Is Multiplicity Without Rhythm.

I Might Be In The Basement. I'll Go Upstairs And Check.

I Am A Graphic Artist Heart And Soul, Though I Find The Term Artist Rather Embarrassing.

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I Came To The ... Open Gate Of Mathematics. From Here, Well-trodden Paths Lead In Every Direction, And Since Then I Have Often Spent Time There. Sometimes I Think ... I Have Trodden All The Paths ... And Then I Suddenly Discover A New Path And Experience Fresh Delights.

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To Tell You The Truth, I Am Rather Perplexed By The Concept Of 'art'. What One Person Considers To Be 'art' Is Often Not 'art' To Another. 'beautiful' And 'ugly' Are Old-fashioned Concepts That Are Seldom Applied These Days; Perhaps Justifiably, Who Knows? Something Repulsive, Which Gives You A Moral Hangover, And Hurts Your Ears Or Eyes, May Well Be Art. Only 'kitsch' Is Not Art - We're All Agreed About That. Indeed, But What Is 'kitsch'? If Only I Knew!

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To Have Peace With This Peculiar Life; To Accept What We Do Not Understand; To Wait Calmly For What Awaits Us, You Have To Be Wiser Than I Am.

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In Mathematical Quarters, The Regular Division Of The Plane Has Been Considered Theoretically. ... [mathematicians] Have Opened The Gate Leading To An Extensive Domain, But They Have Not Entered This Domain Themselves. By Their Very Nature They Are More Interested In The Way In Which The Gate Is Opened Than In The Garden Lying Behind It.

For Me It Remains An Open Question Whether [this Work] Pertains To The Realm Of Mathematics Or To That Of Art.

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He Who Wonders Discovers That This In Itself Is Wonder.

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