Maurits Cornelius Escher, artist and mathematician

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Maurits Cornelius Escher

Born in the small town of Leeuwarden in the Netherlands, on June 17th 1898, was M.C. Escher. He is one of the most famous graphic artists of all time; what made his style so unique was not only his understanding and use of mathematics, but also his impossible worlds that he had created. He started a trend that many artists to this day still follow.

His father, George Arnold Escher, was a hydraulics engineer, and his mother, Sarah Gleichman, stayed at home to take care of their three sons. They lived in a mansion named Princessehof, which later on became a museum of Escher's works.

His family moved to the city of Arnhem in 1903. There he took piano and carpentry lessons until 1912, when he went to a secondary school up until 1918. From 1919 to 1922, he studied at Haarlem School of Architecture and Decorative Arts.

The he learned about woodcutting, drawing, architecture, and his main style: graphic art.

In 1924 Escher married Jetta Umiker, a woman that he met on one of his many trips to Italy. Because of politics during that time, the couple moved from Rome to Switzerland, then to Belgium, and then they finally settled in the town of Baarn in the Netherlands until 1970. They had three sons, the oldest of which often travels around and gives lectures about his father's work

Maurits was constantly drawing and developing his own style since the time he was in secondary school. One of his main inspirations was traveling to Italy every year where he would draw up sketches that he turned into extraordinary pieces of art when he returned home.

In his works he included perspective eccentricity and impossible objects that included

mathematical constructs. Also he included tessellation, which was...