This book is amazing not only because of Escher's works itcontains (very nice, of course), but also because of the details onhis life that it has - and that many other books on the subject failto give. After reading this book - and there's plenty of text to read- one will really understand who was Escher, and how did his workimpact on the society on his days.

Illustrated are 448 (of the 449) original woodcuts, wood engravings, lithographs, linocuts and mezzotints by Maurits Cornelis Escher. An attractive volume, it virtually constitutes a catalogue raisonne. Each print is illustrated in minimum quarter-page format, with size, medium and date provided. Introductory chapters provide biographical and autobiographical information. In addition, the only book that the artist wrote, REGELMATIGE VLAKVERDELING (THE REGULAR DIVISION OF THE PLANE), which was published in 1957 in a very limited edition by a Dutch bibliophile society, is translated and illustrated in full. As owner of and dealer in the main body of Escher's original prints, drawings and watercolors, which were previously on loan to the Hague Museum, I make extensive use of this book and commend it to all. Published by Abradale at less than half the price of the out-of-print Abrams edition, but identical to it except for a different dust jacket, it provides good value, and is certainly less expensive than the signed original prints themselves, which cost more than ten thousand dollars each.

The other key books on Escher are VISIONS OF SYMMETRY; THE MAGIC MIRROR OF M.C. ESCHER; and THE GRAPHIC WORK OF M.C. ESCHER.

M.C. Escher was a true genius. This book has every print he has ever done. Along with a comprehensive history and a lot of his writings, this book gives you the best insight to a mathematical genius who barely passed math in school.

Given as a gift by a special friend of mine, the book has always adorned the coffee table in the living room as a centerpiece that never fails to attract the attention of both art lovers and art dabblers alike. Perhaps it could be said that my interest in the two seemingly disparate field of mathematics and art motivated that friend of mine to purchase the book, as Escher himself apparently believed and proved that those two seemingly unrelated fields could be beautifully synthesized in a brilliant fusion of creativity. The result is more than convincing.

Escher was a Dutch wanna-be mathematician, who expressed himself through incredibly intricate, creative works of art. This book contains hundreds of his drawing as well as his notebook sketches, which is interesting to look at because you get to see how he developed his drawings. Accompanying most of the pictures in this book are excerpts of letters that he wrote to various people. If you want a book on Escher's work, then this is the one to buy! Fantastic.

High-quality reproductions of the amazing artworks. Minimalistic style of comments and excerpts from artist's letters gives you a focus on subtle details and motives, and lets images tell you the rest.

This book is great for teachers in art as well as math. The book comes with full detailed explanations as well as separate sheets to make copies. There are many different designs to choose from. Excellent source of reference.

Now this book has intricated patterns and complicated designs. It took me a long time to develop one. Once I got the hang of it I thought students how to do them and they really enjoyed.If you are into art this is a great book for projects and designs

The basic ideas in this book have been an inspiration to me for years. I had just enough background in engineering and drafting to realize that I could duplicate the basic patterns here to create my own little twisty things whenever I want to produce an amazing surprise. With color photocopying on cardstock, and by laminating photographic paper which was too flimsy to work with, it has been possible for me to create hundreds of these converging convolutions of my own design within the last six years.

In the edition I have, a design called "Heaven and Hell" is discussed on page 44. The basics are pretty obvious, like "wingtips of angels and devils are joined to form the outline of right triangles contained in a square." Overall, what is illustrated is that "Interlocking motifs depicting opposites" can be used to emphasize "the inability to recognize one without the other." This kind of playing with opposite valuations makes the most sense in a context like jokes,! where only people who dare to get in trouble would try anything which might be considered too personal. I was younger when I thought that these things might be a lot of fun, and I have given away most of the items that I was able to produce from the book, while I still have a vast quantity of the ones which I designed myself. The main reason I know better now (the ones in the book are not as intrusive) is because my own personal applications have often encountered morality on a level that is frightening to particular individuals. I should refrain from offering any samples of how a Pop Up Poem Book could make some aspect of a person (or worse, a line someone said which would be perfect in a poem) into poetry in motion, but such a person might become too self-conscious to continue to be subject to such scrutiny. It happens. As with my reviews, my own designs try to reflect some aspect of myself, as when they contain some kind of surprise, and I've started calling them nuker!plunkers instead of convolutions, so people have the opportunity to use their imaginations in considering what I might be giving them when I tell them, "Have a nukerplunker."

As a child, Maurits Cornelis Escher fitted together irregular pieces of cheese in his sandwiches so that they would completely fill the space between the slices of bread. From the very beginnings of his career as an artist, in 1921, he devised ways of interlocking images so as to leave no empty space, and then of making these images repeat infinitely in increasingly complex ways. Professor Schattschneider's magnificently illustrated volume analyses this critical aspect of Escher's work, focussing on a series of 137 symmetry drawings and watercolors created from 1926 to 1971, which the artist kept in five folders throughout his lifetime and which he used as references for his continuing work on the regular division of the plane. Included are analogies from each of these works (which now sell for tens and hundreds of thousands of dollars each) to his original prints and projects. As owner of and dealer in the main body of Escher's original prints, drawings and watercolors, which were previously on loan to the Hague Museum, I make extensive use of this book and commend it to all. Some of the text is written for the layman; other portions of the writing are technical and will be of interest to mathematicians and crystallographers. In addition, the quantity and quality of the full-page color illustrations, few of which are to be found in any other publication in print, contribute to making this book, which serves as a catalogue raisonné of the symmetry drawings and watercolors, eminently collectable.

The other key books on Escher are M.C. ESCHER: HIS LIFE AND COMPLETE GRAPHIC WORK; THE MAGIC MIRROR OF M.C. ESCHER; THE GRAPHIC WORK OF M.C. ESCHER; and ESCHER ON ESCHER. Persons technically inclined may also be interested in ART AND SCIENCE, which constitutes the proceedings of the 1985 Escher conference in Rome.

This book answered a lot of questions I had about Escher's regular division of the plane. It has highly enlarged my understanding of his work, and thus made me enjoy it even more. My initial interest was deepening my mathematical knowledge on tessallations, and I can tell I did.

This book has beautiful full color reproductions of Escher's notebooks, along with erxplainations and diagrams showing how Escher accomplished such a volume of work. It also includes anecdotes told by his friends, and reproductions of all three of the metamorphosis. Truly Brilliant! You can't go wrong with this book, be you mathemetitian, or artist

M.C. Escher, make many contributions to the art and math-related sciences. This awesome book, a must-have relic, shows, the graphic work of this artist, showing us, the complexity and mistery of many of his works, from his popular "Metamorphosis" series to it's "impossible paintings", like "Waterfalls" or "Concave and Convex". The quallity of the illsutrations and content is excellent. This is, a must-have book, for any artist, graphic designer, scientist, or people, interested on contemporary, and impressive art.

The copies of the prints in this calendar are magnificent. The detail and artistry that escher puts into his works is the most beautiful I have ever seen. Escher is the greatest artist of all time. I recommend this to everyone.

The work of Escher has captured the imagination of many people and in this book Bruno Ernst (a personal friend of Escher) expands our understanding of the artist. After a brief but concise biography, the author throughly analyses the most important facets of Escher's artistic output: the illusion in drawing, the use of perspective, the creation of impossible realities, simultaneous and contrasting realities, crystals, and the infinite. Escher was an artist who was unique in in his work, he stands by himself, and this book is a helping tool in understanding and appreciating the unparalleled magic of his work.

The greatness of this book on the work of M.C. Escher is that it shows how he worked up his ideas for various pieces. It also gives a thorough explanation of his thought and design process. It is truely a shame that this book has gone out of print. I sincerely hope that the publisher brings it back.

In The Magic Mirror of M.C. Escher, Bruno Ernst, an acquaintance of Escher's until Escher's death in 1972, presents a thorough summary of the life and work of Escher. Ernst devotes a chapter to the life of Escher, and uses the rest of the book to describe his amazing work. He includes the different themes and styles that Escher used, and devotes a good amount of space to each work discussed. The book is extremely thorough and includes large clear illustrations of the works themselves and also of earlier drafts of the works and mathematical descriptions to assist the reader. This is the most concise book of Escher and his work I have ever seen, and Ernst has done a fabulous job on it.

Escher's prints make a welcome change from Ms. Langton's amateurish pen and ink sketches. Other than that, this is a rather unremarkable addition to her Homer and Mary Kelly mysteries. Ostensibly hired to help a man find a mysterious woman he has fallen in love with at first sight, Homer and Mary and their client dither around in an Escher landscape that never seems to get where it is going. Such oddities as the man's changing his hair part and seeing himself endlessly repeated in facing mirrors do not really make a plot. The Mount Auburn cemetery provides an intriguing centerpoint and backdrop for a lot of the action, but its residents have more character than this rather flawed, somewhat unresolved mystery. Plot elements include a vengeful woman who has lost her child, a slightly potty professor's widow, two geologists and the inhabitants of the cemetery, woven into a tale of love unrequitable with the information at hand. This is not Langton's best effort (Dark Nantucket Noon was a much better story).

It doesn't take long to figure out that Jane Langton's use of Escher prints provides creative foreshadowing in "The Escher Twist." Just like the Escher prints used throughout the book, you're not sure if you are seeing what you think you are seeing. The characters in this delightful story ramble through the plot at a relaxed, though never dull, pace. The main characters' child-like views of the world are just innocent enough to be charming without drifting over the "Dumb and Dumber" fault line. "The Escher Twist" winds down to a tidy and satisfying conclusion.

Whether one is artistically literate or not, it is entirely possibly to appreciate the marvelous etchings of M.(Maurits) C. Escher. I feel privileged to own two large prints, several calendars and a book or two of Escher prints or drawings. Of course, you can easily drive yourself batty by staring at them too much, or maybe it's that one should be a bit loopy in the first place in order to really be enchanted by the illusive possibilities created by this extremely gifted artist.

Having discovered the books of another extremely gifted artist, Jane Langton-at the time of her first Homer Kelly book-I feel doubly privileged. Therefore I can and do happily admit to a certain amount of prejudice in favor of this book, combining two of my favorite things. Ms. Langton writes not only with great skill, but great erudition, wit, and just plain wonderful word-play. One small note of caution, however: the reader should approach this book with the sense of whimsicality fully engaged, as it very like a trip to Wonderland, replete with White Queens and peacocks and other such frivoloties.

There is indeed a mystery to be solved, including that of 'love at first sight'. It does happen, to be sure, although the resolution is not always as happy as that first 'rush' insinuates. In this book, the reader will need every smidgen of loopiness possible to cope with not only the wonderful word-play and the marvelous reproductions of Escher's etchings (as described in his own words) but also the slightly bizarre events which entangle and draw the various characters into the plot.

Leonard Sheldrake, a professor at Harvard, briefly meets the elusive Frieda at an Escher exhibit. Before he can further the acquaintance, which suddenly assumes a major importance in his life, Frieda disappears, and he is left with only the mental picture of her that he carries in his mind, and the tiny tid-bit of information that is her first name. No last name, no address, no clues at all. Into this maelstrom wander Homer and Mary Kelly, also professors at Harvard, who engage themselves to assist Leonard in his search.

There is an unexpectedly happy ending, but not without some very skillful weaving together of the various threads that had been so laboriously tangled in the previous pages. Just as in an Escher drawing, nothing is extraneous, here, too, this law prevails. No clue is too small to be relevant. I believe that anyone could enjoy this book, but persons who enjoy puzzles or word-games or the multi-dimensional world of M. C. Escher will find an extra level of enjoyment within its pages.

I bought this book to use in my third grader's study of M.C. Escher and tessellations. The pictures that make up the pop-ups are too small to use with a group and might be even too small and non-vibrant for children at all. The narration was adult-like. For adult Escher fans this is probably good, but for children, who adore pop-up books, it was a disappointment.

We have a good collection of pop-up books for our toddler, but this one is for the adults in the family. Eight representations of Escher's work are presented in black-and-white with one or two sentences of analysis and/or an explanatory quote by the artist. These short comments are interesting and informative, and it is made clear that Escher is precisely an artist whose ideas and work should be presented three-dimensionally. The eight presentations are: Ascending and Descending, Drawing Hands, Puddle, Hand with Reflecting Sphere, Mobius Strip II, Regular Division of the Plane V, Relativity, and Tower of Babel.

These renditions don't knock your socks off, but they are thought-provoking and interesting -- fun for adults, not so much for children.

Pop up Book lovers need this in their collection. If you like the work of M. C. Escher this is great.

A several-page introduction by Locher, then an essay by Escher, and then 184 illustrations (one, two, or three to a page), eight in color, the rest black & white. Some you've seen in popular reproductions. The rest flesh out what Escher was all about.