| Tower of Babel | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Artist | M. C. Escher |
| Year | 1928 |
| Type | Woodcut |
| Dimensions | 62.1 cm× 38.6 cm(24.4 in× 15.2 in) |
Tower of Babel is a woodcut print by the Dutch artist M. C. Escher, who created it in 1928, illustrating his early artistic interest in depicting new perspectives and unusual viewpoints in his works.
The woodcut depicts the Tower of Babel, a biblical story about people attempting to build a tower to reach God, which is found in Genesis 11:9. Although Escher later dismissed his works before 1935 as of little or no value as they were "for the most part merely practice exercises," [1] some of them, including the Tower of Babel, chart the development of his interest in perspective and unusual viewpoints that would become the hallmarks of his later, more famous, works, such as Belvedere and Waterfall .[ citation needed ]
In contrast to many other depictions of the biblical story, such as those by Pieter Brueghel the Elder ( The Tower of Babel ) and Gustave Doré (The Confusion of Tongues), Escher depicts the tower as a geometrical structure and places the viewpoint above the tower. This allows him to exercise his skill with perspective, but he also chose to centre the picture around the top of the tower as the focus for the climax of the action. He later commented:
Some of the builders are white and others black. The work is at a standstill because they are no longer able to understand one another. Seeing as the climax of the drama takes place at the summit of the tower which is under construction, the building has been shown from above as though from a bird's eye view. [2]
The print is one of the few important artworks which entered the public domain in the United States on 1 January 2024. [3] [a]
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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.
The Tower of Babel is an origin myth and parable in the Book of Genesis meant to explain the existence of different languages and cultures.
The Penrose triangle, also known as the Penrose tribar, the impossible tribar, or the impossible triangle, is a triangular impossible object, an optical illusion consisting of an object which can be depicted in a perspective drawing. It cannot exist as a solid object in ordinary three-dimensional Euclidean space, although its surface can be embedded isometrically in five-dimensional Euclidean space. It was first created by the Swedish artist Oscar Reutersvärd in 1934. Independently from Reutersvärd, the triangle was devised and popularized in the 1950s by psychiatrist Lionel Penrose and his son, the mathematician and Nobel Prize laureate Roger Penrose, who described it as "impossibility in its purest form". It is featured prominently in the works of artist M. C. Escher, whose earlier depictions of impossible objects partly inspired it.
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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.
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The Tower of Babel was the subject of three paintings by Dutch and Flemish Renaissance painter Pieter Bruegel the Elder. The first, a miniature painted on ivory, was painted in 1552–1553 while Bruegel was in Rome, and is now lost. The two surviving works are oil paintings on wood panels, sometimes distinguished by the prefix "Great" and "Little" and by their present location: Kunsthistorisches Museum Wien in Vienna and the latter in the Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen in Rotterdam. The Tower of Babel in Vienna is dated 1563, while the version is Rotterdam is undated but widely believed to have been painted sometime after.
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.
Abel Grimmer was a Flemish late Renaissance painter, mainly of landscapes and, to a lesser extent, of architectural paintings. His works were important in the development towards more naturalism in Flemish landscape painting.
Hendrick van Cleve or Hendrik van Cleve III was a Flemish painter, draughtsman and designer of prints. He is known for topographical views, including views of Rome and the Vatican, as well as imaginary landscapes. Traditionally, a large number of depictions of the construction of the Tower of Babel have been attributed to him but most of these are now attributed to anonymous Flemish painters, who are referred to as 'The Hendrik van Cleve III Group'.
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