(Picture courtesy)

One of my favorite artists as a kid was M. C. Escher. I discovered a book about him through a friend, and when you are an 8 year old girl and nobody else around you had heard about this magical thing you encountered, it was like finding a secret cave or a beautiful treasure. As I grew older, I realized that the entire world knew who he was and that his pictures were often used for various illustrations and publications, toys, decorative objects and prints. I still love his images though, especially the intricate details, the accuracy and the incredible amount of work that went into each piece.

(Picture courtesy)

I recently stumbled upon this documentary on youtube about him. It gave me a feeling of being back in junior high, when the art teacher would force the entire class to watch a strange documentary made about 30 years prior with funky music and good ol’ 70ies style animations and fancy pants on the men interviewed. I recall that my classmates rarely enjoyed the wacky old documentaries presented by the wacky old art teachers, but I always found them charming and I rather enjoyed being forced to watch videos I could not watch on my own. (There was no youtube back then kids!) Anyway, here is part 1 of the documentary, the other parts can be found at youtube. If you can withstand the cheesiness (or if you are like me, you kind of secretly like it), it is a really interesting documentary. I especially like the parts where they interview mathematicians.