{"id":17344,"date":"2015-10-17T01:05:31","date_gmt":"2015-10-17T00:05:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/?p=17344"},"modified":"2015-10-17T01:05:31","modified_gmt":"2015-10-17T00:05:31","slug":"mc-escher-book-covers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/2015\/10\/17\/mc-escher-book-covers\/","title":{"rendered":"MC Escher book covers"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"escher08.jpg\"<\/p>\n

1963. Art: Other World (1947).<\/em><\/p>\n

MC Escher’s prints have been touring the UK this year: a few months ago they were in Scotland, this month they can be seen at the Dulwich Picture Gallery<\/a> in London. The renewed attention prompted the BBC to produce a documentary, The Art of the Impossible: MC Escher and Me<\/em><\/a>, in collaboration with Professor Roger Penrose. One of the programme researchers saw my earlier post about the use of Escher’s work on album covers<\/a>, and asked if I wanted to appear on camera talking about this, something I politely refused to do. I’m happy to hold forth from a keyboard, however, so here’s a post about some of the books that have used Esher’s work to decorate their covers. Most of these are fiction but there must be many more non-fiction titles\u2014especially in the fields of science and mathematics\u2014that borrow Escher’s prints.<\/p>\n

\"escher09.jpg\"<\/p>\n

The first edition of Calvino’s comic stories from 1965.<\/p>\n

\"escher10.jpg\"<\/p>\n

Art: Relativity (1953).<\/em><\/p>\n

Not a book but editor Michael Moorcock has claimed that this was the first UK magazine to print any of Escher’s work.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\"escher11.jpg\"<\/p>\n

1970. Art: Stars (1948).<\/em><\/p>\n

\"escher12.jpg\"<\/p>\n

From 1971, Pauwels & Bergier’s celebrated collection of Forteana, weird fiction, occultism and historical speculation, The Morning of the Magicians<\/em>. See this post<\/a> for more covers.<\/p>\n

\"escher13.jpg\"<\/p>\n

1971. Art: Tetrahedral Planetoid (1954).<\/em><\/p>\n

\"escher14.jpg\"<\/p>\n

1976. Art: Day and Night (1938).<\/em><\/p>\n

\"escher15.jpg\"<\/p>\n

1996. Art: Circle Limit IV (1960).<\/em><\/p>\n

\"escher16.jpg\"<\/p>\n

1998. Art: Three Spheres I (1945).<\/em><\/p>\n

\"escher17.jpg\"<\/p>\n

2002.<\/em><\/p>\n

\"escher18.jpg\"<\/p>\n

From 2003, a variation on Rind<\/em> (1955). See below.<\/p>\n

\"escher21.jpg\"<\/p>\n

2004. Art: Other World (1947).<\/em><\/p>\n

A series of Borges reprints by Penguin makes good use of Escher’s work, Borges and Calvino having many affinities with the artist’s mental games. A shame, then, that these editions use the translations I like the least.<\/p>\n

\"escher19.jpg\"<\/p>\n

2004. Art: Snakes (1969).<\/em><\/p>\n

\"escher22.jpg\"<\/p>\n

2005: Art: Rind (1955).<\/em><\/p>\n

\"escher20.jpg\"<\/p>\n

2007. Art: Butterflies (1950).<\/em><\/p>\n

Elsewhere on { feuilleton }
\n\u2022 The book covers archive<\/a><\/p>\n

Previously on { feuilleton }
\n\u2022 Relativity<\/a>
\n\u2022 Escher\u2019s snakes<\/a>
\n\u2022 The Fantastic World of MC Escher<\/a>
\n\u2022 MC Escher album covers<\/a>
\n\u2022 Escher and Schrofer<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

1963. Art: Other World (1947). MC Escher’s prints have been touring the UK this year: a few months ago they were in Scotland, this month they can be seen at the Dulwich Picture Gallery in London. The renewed attention prompted the BBC to produce a documentary, The Art of the Impossible: MC Escher and Me, … Continue reading “MC Escher book covers”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[2,42,27,22,20],"tags":[407,1483,216,65,5246],"class_list":["post-17344","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-art","category-books","category-borges","category-horror","category-science-fiction","tag-italo-calvino","tag-jorge-luis-borges","tag-mc-escher","tag-michael-moorcock","tag-roger-penrose"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pq7rV-4vK","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17344","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17344"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17344\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17344"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17344"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17344"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}