M. C. Escher Art Quotations

By keenly confronting the enigmas that surround us, and by considering and analyzing the observations that I had made, I ended up in the domain of mathematics. Although I am absolutely without training in the exact sciences, I often seem to have more in common with mathematicians than with my fellow artists.

I am a graphic artist heart and soul, though I find the term artist rather embarrassing.

I never got a pass mark in math... Just imagine - mathematicians now use my prints to illustrate their books. Funny me consorting with all these learned folks, as though I were their long lost brother. I guess they are unaware of the fact that I am ignorant about the whole thing.

All my works are games, serious game.

I am always wandering around in enigmas. There are young people who constantly come to tell me: you, too, are making Op Art. I haven't the slightest idea what that is, Op Art. I've been doing this work for thirty years now.

For me it remains an open question whether [this work] pertains to the realm of mathematics or to that of art.

Drawing is deception.

What I give form to in daylight is only one per cent of what I have seen in darkness.

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!

Wonder is the salt of the earth.

Science and art sometimes can touch one another, like two pieces of the jigsaw puzzle which is our human life, and that contact may be made across the boderline between the two respective domains.

Only those who attempt the absurd will achieve the impossible. I think it's in my basement... let me go upstairs and check.

Are you really sure that a floor can't also be a ceiling?

It is human nature to want to exchange ideas, and I believe that, at bottom, every artist wants no more than to tell the world what he has to say.