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There are numerous references to Dutch painter M.C. Escher in popular culture.
| | This article needs additional citations for verification .(December 2010) |
There are numerous references to Dutch painter M.C. Escher in popular culture.
The idea of Shahram Mokri's 2013 film Fish & Cat was inspired by Escher's paintings. [1] The director gives a change in the perspective of time in one single shot.
In Night at the Museum: Secret of the Tomb (2014), Sir Lancelot, Teddy Roosevelt, and Larry Daley enter the painting Relativity, and experience the same strange gravity featured in the painting. [2]
In Dario Argento's Suspiria (1977), Escher's art is painted on several walls, as well as the main location of the film being on the fictitious "Escherstrasse", an obvious nod to the artist.
The film Labyrinth (1986) features a room based on the painting Relativity . [3]
The slasher film A Nightmare on Elm Street 5: The Dream Child (1989) features a pastiche of House of Stairs or Relativity conjured up by Freddy Krueger in his dream dimension, [4] referred to in the script as the "Escher Maze", where it is described as "an Escheresque, expressionistic landscape" and "an insane, logic-defying world where water runs uphill and stairs and doors stand at impossible angles to one another." [5]
The Captain Future anime series features a variation of Escher's Relativity in its 40th episode "Nightmare World: 4th Dimension" (悪夢の世界・四次元; Akumu no sekai shi-jigen) as the home dimension of alien energy creatures.
The Comedy Central animated series Drawn Together has a first-season episode, "Clara's Dirty Little Secret", where Clara believes she is pregnant, and Toot suggests that she fall down some stairs. Clara thinks of a suitable room and leads them to the "M. C. Escher room", where Toot pushes Clara down (and up, around and back down) a flight of stairs.
The FOX animated series Family Guy has alluded to Escher on three occasions. In "Brian Goes Back to College", Stewie and Brian share a room where Stewie puts up a framed print of Relativity, which he calls "Crazy Stairs". He then breaks it while playing Ultimate Frisbee and asks "Oh no, did that hit crazy stairs?" A later episode, "No Meals on Wheels", features Peter complaining that the fact that his new restaurant is attracting paraplegics "is weirder than that rap video by M.C. Escher". Escher is then depicted inside Relativity dressed like MC Hammer in "U Can't Touch This"[ citation needed ] and rapping, "Going up the stairs and going down the stairs and going up the stairs and going down the stairs and going up the sideways stairs."
In another episode Stewie tells Brian he makes “less sense than M.C. Escher’s floor plan”, and then the episode shows the constructor complaining the architect Escher that he cannot put six stairways “all in one spot” and because of that workers are quitting.
In the Teen Titans first season episode "Mad Mod", its eponymous villain traps the Titans in an illusionary setting based on Escher's works.
On the SyFy sci-fi series Warehouse 13 , Escher is said by Leena to be one of the architects, along with Thomas Edison and Nikola Tesla, who designed the Warehouse. The Escher Vault's design resembles the lithograph Relativity. Inside this vault, the stairwells and walls are constantly moving. Anyone not wearing specially designed glasses run the risk of being lost forever once inside. H.G. Wells is the only known individual to have successfully navigated the Escher Vault without glasses, instead using her Inperceptor Vest to retrieve personal items stored within.
In the Star vs. the Forces of Evil episode "Interdimensional Field Trip", Sabrina, the classmate of Star falls in a construction similar to Relativity.
The Rick and Morty episode "Morty's Mind Blowers" opens with the titular characters fleeing from a humanoid creature set in a place similar to Relativity.
The Futurama episode "I, Roommate" features Relativity as one of the living spaces Fry and Bender are considering living in.
Escher is alluded to in the Phineas and Ferb episode "Gaming the System" in which Candace is found in an environment similar to Relativity.
The Final Space episode "Chapter Three" features a construct alluding to Escher.
In Yu-Gi-Oh! , Yami Yugi's mind in the Millenium Puzzle is represented as a construction similar to Relativity, to emphasize the confusion he feels about who he is.
Hwang Dong-hyuk, director of Squid Game, said in an interview with Netflix that the set's maze-like corridors and stairs were inspired by M.C. Escher's Relativity. [6] [7] [8]
In Transformers: Cyberverse , “the End of the Universe part 2” Optimus, Bumblebee and Wheeljack get stranded in a dimension with infinite stairs connecting to each other defying the laws of gravity. The space is an allusion to the impossible object thematic of Escher.
In the city building game Afterlife , Hell's ultimate punishment for Envy is called the Escher pit and is designed to torture souls by having them all be given different punishments, and after a few days are allowed to switch with a neighbor, thinking he / she is better off, only to find that all punishments are worse than the last. The outside slightly resembles Relativity.
In Final Fantasy IX, the third-disc dungeon Ipsen's Castle is modeled after the painting, featuring an array of inverted ladders and stairs.
In AdventureQuest Worlds , the first lord of chaos is Escherion, who has the ability to invert objects and lives in a castle with an inside similar to "Relativity".
In the Psygnosis game Lemmings , the 18th level of "Taxing" is named "Tribute to M.C. Escher", as the solution involves building a zigzag stairway slightly reminiscent of Relativity.
In God of War III, 'Hera's Garden' is a Escher inspired puzzle in which the player must manipulate various objects and the camera perspective to guide protagonist Kratos to the exit.
In Knock-Knock game, one of fragments of reality is a reference to Escher's work.
During the last decades several video games have been released, some of which are more or less inspired by the art of M.C. Escher, such as Monument Valley. Some games borrow the graphical art style; some games contain game mechanics that are heavily influenced by the artist while others are simply put tributes to the works of M.C. Escher. [9]
The cover of Mike Oldfield's Boxed (1976) mimics two of Escher's works: "Gallery" and "Other World". [10] [11]
The cover of British band Mott the Hoople's self-titled debut album features a colorized reproduction of Escher's lithograph Reptiles.
American rock band Chagall Guevara recorded the song "Escher's World" from their 1991 eponymous album.
In the video "Around the World" (1997) of Daft Punk, men and women, dressed like mummies similar to those in Escher's painting, perpetually walk around on a stair.
"Escher", a song on Teenage Fanclub's album Thirteen , with lyrics that deal with disorientation.
The song "Mansion Party" by Ninja Sex Party features the line "Take an upside-down left at the M.C. Escher Stairs" and the song's animated music video shows a scene similar to that of Relativity.
In the song "White and Nerdy" by "Weird Al" Yankovic, he says "M.C. Escher, that's my favorite M.C."
American jazz saxophonist Michael Brecker has recorded a composition entitled "Escher Sketch (A Tale of Two Rhythms)". The album that features it, "Now You See It… (Now You Don't)", also has M.C.Escher's artwork on the cover.
Andrew Lipson created a Lego version of Relativity. [12]
In 1981, Austria issued a postage stamp featuring Escher's Impossible Dice Construction [13] and a 1998 Netherlands stamp illustrated a portrait of the artist alongside one of his works. [14] [13]
In 2007, a Relativity inspired "Endless Staircase" room was added to Walt Disney World's Haunted Mansion attraction.
In 2017, four combs and 244 steps from old wooden-stepped escalators at Wynyard railway station, Sydney, Australia, were "refashioned into a soaring crisscrossing tangle reminiscent of an Escher puzzle" named 'Interloop', designed by local artist Chris Fox and hanging from a ceiling above one of the new sets of escalators. [15] [16] [17]
The Doctor Who episode "Castrovalva" takes its name from Escher's early lithograph of the same name, though Escher's view of Castrovalva has none of the paradoxical elements of his later works to which the setting of the episode could more readily be compared. [18]
Sheila Chandra included a piece called "Escher's Triangle" on her CD Roots and Wings - the title refers to Escher's use of the Penrose triangle in pictures like Waterfall .
A comic crossover between Mike Allred's Madman and Bernie Mireault's The Jam, features Escher as a central character when the two characters enter into an alternate universe created by a somewhat godlike Escher, based on many of his works. [19]
In 2006 Audi released a commercial with many Escher-inspired scenes. [20]
The bonus stages of the first Sonic the Hedgehog game, for the Sega Genesis/Mega Drive, feature an animated background of birds turning into fish, a reference to Sky and Water I . [21]
In The Thief and the Cobbler , there is a chase sequence that contains set pieces loosely based on Escher's works. [22] Monument Valley and its sequel features puzzles that are loosely based on Escher's works. [23] [24]
In 2016, in The Hidden Oracle the first book of the series The Trials of Apollo written by Rick Riordan, Apollo notes that the paintings on the walls of the cave of the pythia Rachel resemble the work of M. C. Escher.
In the film Inception , Arthur demonstrates to Ariadne how to make unbreakable mental mazes by constructing infinite structures. He points out that during their long conversation, they have been traversing the same single flight of stairs, and the camera pans out to show a staircase similar to Escher's Ascending and Descending.
Maurits Cornelis Escher was a Dutch graphic artist who made woodcuts, lithographs, and mezzotints, many of which were inspired by mathematics. Despite wide popular interest, for most of his life Escher was neglected in the art world, even in his native Netherlands. He was 70 before a retrospective exhibition was held. In the late twentieth century, he became more widely appreciated, and in the twenty-first century he has been celebrated in exhibitions around the world.
An impossible object is a type of optical illusion that consists of a two-dimensional figure which is instantly and naturally understood as representing a projection of a three-dimensional object but cannot exist as a solid object. Impossible objects are of interest to psychologists, mathematicians and artists without falling entirely into any one discipline.
Freddy Krueger is a fictional character and the primary antagonist in the A Nightmare on Elm Street film series. He was created by Wes Craven and made his debut in Craven's A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984) as the malevolent spirit of a child killer who had been burned to death by his victims' parents after evading prison. Krueger goes on to murder his victims in their dreams, causing their deaths in the real world as well. In the dream world, he is a powerful force and seemingly invulnerable. However, whenever Freddy is pulled back into the real world, he has normal human vulnerabilities and can be destroyed. He is commonly identified by his burned, disfigured face, dirty red-and-green-striped sweater and brown fedora, and trademark metal-clawed, brown leather, right hand glove. This glove was the product of Krueger's own imagination, having welded the blades himself before using it to murder many of his victims, both in the real and dream worlds. Over the course of the film series, Freddy has battled several reoccurring survivors including Nancy Thompson and Alice Johnson. The character was consistently portrayed by Robert Englund in the original film series as well as in the television spin-off Freddy's Nightmares.
The Persistence of Memory is a 1931 painting by artist Salvador Dalí and one of the most recognizable works of Surrealism. First shown at the Julien Levy Gallery in 1932, since 1934 the painting has been in the collection of the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York City, which received it from an anonymous donor. It is widely recognized and frequently referred to in popular culture, and sometimes referred to by more descriptive titles, such as "Melting Clocks", "The Soft Watches" or "The Melting Watches".
The Penrose stairs or Penrose steps, also dubbed the impossible staircase, is an impossible object created by Oscar Reutersvärd in 1937 and later independently discovered and made popular by Lionel Penrose and his son Roger Penrose. A variation on the Penrose triangle, it is a two-dimensional depiction of a staircase in which the stairs make four 90-degree turns as they ascend or descend yet form a continuous loop, so that a person could climb them forever and never get any higher. This is clearly impossible in three-dimensional Euclidean geometry but possible in some non-Euclidean geometry like in nil geometry.
Relativity is a lithograph print by the Dutch artist M. C. Escher, first printed in December 1953. The first version of this work was a woodcut made earlier that same year.
Waterfall is a lithograph by the Dutch artist M. C. Escher, first printed in October 1961. It shows a perpetual motion machine where water from the base of a waterfall appears to run downhill along the water path before reaching the top of the waterfall.
Oscar Reutersvärd was a Swedish graphic artist, who in 1934 pioneered the art of 3D drawings that may initially appear feasible, yet cannot be physically constructed. He is sometimes described as "the father of the impossible figure", although there are much older examples, e.g. Hogarth's Satire on False Perspective.
Freddy's Nightmares is an American horror anthology television series, which aired in syndication from October 1988 until March 1990. A spin-off from the A Nightmare on Elm Street film series, each episode is introduced by Freddy Krueger, and features two different stories, with eight of them throughout the series actually having Freddy Krueger as the main antagonist. The pilot episode was directed by Tobe Hooper, and begins with Krueger's prosecution on child-murdering charges.
Castrovalva is the first serial of the 19th season of the British science fiction television series Doctor Who, which was first broadcast in four twice-weekly parts on BBC1 from 4 to 12 January 1982. It was the first full serial to feature Peter Davison as the Fifth Doctor. The title is a reference to the lithograph Castrovalva by M. C. Escher, which depicts the town Castrovalva in the Abruzzo region, Italy.
"Mind Over Murder" is the fourth episode of the first season of the animated comedy series Family Guy. It originally aired on Fox in the United States on April 25, 1999. The episode features Peter after he is placed under house arrest, and decides to open his own bar in the family's basement. The bar immediately becomes a success among Peter's male friends when his wife, Lois, begins to sing and dance in front of them while wearing revealing clothing. Meanwhile, Stewie attempts to create a time travel device in order to escape the pain of teething.
In geometry, the rhombille tiling, also known as tumbling blocks, reversible cubes, or the dice lattice, is a tessellation of identical 60° rhombi on the Euclidean plane. Each rhombus has two 60° and two 120° angles; rhombi with this shape are sometimes also called diamonds. Sets of three rhombi meet at their 120° angles, and sets of six rhombi meet at their 60° angles.
"Stewie Loves Lois" is the first episode of the fifth season of the animated comedy series Family Guy. It originally aired on Fox on September 10, 2006. The episode features Stewie becoming overly affectionate with his mother Lois after an incident. Meanwhile, Peter gets a prostate exam from Dr. Hartman, but believes that he has been raped instead, and decides to prosecute his doctor in court.
Wayside is a Canadian animated series and sitcom developed by John Derevlany and produced by Nelvana Limited. The series follows Todd, a transfer student who attends Wayside, an offbeat 30-story grammar school. It is loosely based on the Wayside School books by Louis Sachar, and several elements differ between the two works.
Dream worlds are a commonly used plot device in fictional works, most notably in science fiction and fantasy fiction. The use of a dream world creates a situation whereby a character is placed in a marvellous and unpredictable environment and must overcome several personal problems to leave it. The dream world also commonly serves to teach some moral or religious lessons to the character experiencing it – a lesson that the other characters will be unaware of, but one that will influence decisions made regarding them. When the character is reintroduced into the real world, the question arises as to what exactly constitutes reality due to the vivid recollection and experiences of the dream world.
Mathematics and art are related in a variety of ways. Mathematics has itself been described as an art motivated by beauty. Mathematics can be discerned in arts such as music, dance, painting, architecture, sculpture, and textiles. This article focuses, however, on mathematics in the visual arts.
"The Blind Side" is the eleventh episode of the tenth season of the American animated sitcom Family Guy. The episode originally aired on Fox in the United States on January 15, 2012. In the episode, Peter meets Stella, the new worker who replaces Opie and is deaf. Quagmire falls for her and decides to have a party for disabled women at the bar, where Brian meets a blind girl named Kate and decides to date her. Meanwhile, Lois replaces the stairs after Stewie gets a splinter, but Peter constantly slips and falls on them and eventually decides to stay upstairs for good.
Family Guy: Back to the Multiverse is an action-adventure third-person shooter video game developed by Heavy Iron Studios and published by Activision. The game is based on the American animated television series Family Guy, including the episode "Road to the Multiverse", and was also a continuation of the episode "The Big Bang Theory". It also featured the return of Stewie's evil half-brother Bertram, who was killed in the show. The game was released in North America on November 20, 2012, in Australia on November 21, 2012, and in Europe on November 23, 2012, for Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 3, and Xbox 360. Versions for Nintendo 3DS and Wii were planned but canceled. It was the first Family Guy console game since Family Guy Video Game! in 2006.
Sean Whalen is an American actor and writer. He is known for his work in numerous TV shows, including Shannon's Deal and Grace Under Fire, as well as movies, including The People Under the Stairs and Twister. He is also known for appearing as a hapless history buff in the first "Got Milk?" commercial, directed by Michael Bay, which aired in 1993.
Squid Game is a South Korean television series created by Hwang Dong-hyuk for Netflix. Its cast includes Lee Jung-jae, Park Hae-soo, Wi Ha-joon, HoYeon Jung, O Yeong-su, Heo Sung-tae, Anupam Tripathi and Kim Joo-ryoung.
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