When he walked down the stairs in his parental home as a boy, the portrait of his great-uncle always hung there. Lying in a chair, pillow behind his head, tips of the fingers together. During the Book Week, Joris Escher talks about how his great-uncle became a famous artist in Athenaeum Boekhandel in Haarlem. He wrote a book about it: Becoming Escher.
For Joris, his great-uncle Maurits Cornelis Escher has always been present in his life. Not only the portrait at the top of the stairs reminded him of his great-uncle. The prints of Uncle Mauk, as he was called, also hung in his father’s study. The Print Exhibition in particular appealed to him enormously. “I identified with that little boy in the print.”
Discovery journey
Years later, when Joris is cleaning up his deceased father’s library, he finds a lacquer box with ivory puzzles and two drawings by his great-uncle in it. He suspects that these puzzles are at the origin of Uncle Mauk’s fascinations. He begins a journey of discovery into who Uncle Mauk actually was. And eventually wrote a book about it in which fiction and non-fiction alternate.
Escher. Who doesn’t know him? The artist of the optical illusions, the surface divisions, the space and depth. The man who made everything steeper, steeper, deeper, deeper and higher, higher. But what many do not know is that Maurits Cornelis Escher trained as a graphic artist in Haarlem. Finally, his father allowed him to attend the education he aspired to after a difficult high school career where he did not obtain any diploma.
Struggle
Finally he was in his place. Still, according to his great-nephew, he felt lonely. “Uncle Mauk was very unhappy in Haarlem.” He struggled with his art and with himself. Joris writes how, after school, the twenty-year-old dives into the Grote Kerk or St. Bavo via the Grote Markt and takes a seat on a prayer chair in the middle of the cathedral. “The only place where space expands and does not shrink on its skin is the Bavo Church.”
There he looks through his eyelashes at the shapes and curves of the vaults, the windows. How the shiny copper ball under the chandeliers reflects the space and churchgoers. And he listens to Bach’s pieces on the organ. “How the tones vibrate through his body!” Later in life, when Escher is stuck in his work, he always puts on Bach.
cross puzzle
The Chinese lacquer box with the three-dimensional cross puzzle where six sticks have to form a cross, which Joris found among his father’s things, is the starting point of his book. He suspects that the spatial insight required to put the puzzle together was at the basis of his great-uncle’s artistry. “Uncle Mauk was a sickly boy who often sat in the study with his father, who was already retired at the time. He played with the puzzles in this box.”
“In Escher’s work you get a story of before and after. About day and night, fish and birds”
Joris decides to follow his uncle’s route and travels to Italy, where Escher lived for fifteen years. He draws on the places where his great-uncle must have been when he made the drawings for his Italian works, teaches himself woodcarving and visits Uncle Mauk’s eldest son George in Canada.
Regular division of the plane
“To understand an artist’s motives, you have to descend to the feeling level. Where are his fascinations? What do I see that he saw?” The artist who had to wait a long time for his work to be appreciated liked to tell a story, explains his great-nephew.
“In his work you get a story of before and after. About day and night, fish and birds, circle of males, lizards, interlocking figures. And everything with that great love for the regular division of the plane.”
After his performance at Athenaeum Boekhandel, Joris Escher will sign his book for the visitors. With his graceful handwriting he writes a message in the front and stamps a cross puzzle in it. As a symbol of where fascinations can lead.
become Escher
In his debut book become Escher Joris Escher alternates fiction with non-fiction. He takes on the role of the little boy, the adolescent and the young adult who eventually becomes a world-famous artist. Through the eyes of Mauk, the reader experiences the development of an artist in the making. In between the story, Joris tells about what he himself experiences, sees and feels during the search for his great-uncle. Only in this way can he understand the origins of MC Escher’s fascinations.