M.C. Escher

M.C. Escher is probably my favorite artist of all time.  Most of his drawings are black and white pencil sketches that make little physical sense.  When looking at one of his pieces, the common first impression is to notice that it’s well done and looks pretty cool.  If you look at them for more than three seconds, you start to realize that the drawn scene is not possible in spacial reality.  This confuses some people, but the easiest thing to do is look at the image part by part and see where you get confused.  In the picture below of the infinite waterfall, you can split the scene into two parts: where the water flows “down” the ramp, and where it falls down the waterfall.  Each of these separate images make sense, but when placed in the same scene, their perspectives conflict and they look (and are) impossible.  Then if you look at the legs of the two towers, you realize how insane the picture actually is.  Similar to the waterfall drawing, the staircase image is just as perplexing.  It is easy to split each little part of the sketch into realistic parts.  However, when they are combined in this way, they distort the viewer’s sense of space and dimension.  Some people can’t stand to look at them because they shouldn’t make sense.  But maybe the better option is to simply accept that they can’t exist and appreciate the confusion.