The Magic Mirror of M. C. Escher

Escher's work is so engaging and interesting. Everyone has seen Escher's work, even if they don't know the name. I've used his work to teach math, graphics, and problem solving. My college students love analyzing his work. I bought this book as a gift, and it was an excellent choice. There are many example works in the book, plus interesting explanations.

I just picked this book up thinking that there has been a "NEW" book published on M.C.Escher's work.When I got it home ,I checked it against other Escher books and was disappointed to find it is the same book published several times before and by different publishers. As you can see the ,publication date of this edition is shown as April 6,2007.Therefore, the reviewers here must have been looking at a previous publication,possibly the one also listed here as a paperback in 1987.The copy I had was even earlier,published by Ballantine in 1976. The quality of this Taschen Edition is very good, in fact, superior to the paperback editions I have seen; and will be enjoyed by anyone who likes M.C. Esher's work ;but the material included has not changed. I believe this is an excellent book ,and agree with the reviews already written on other editions. I guess what we have here is A 25 Year Celebration of its first publication. This is an excellent chance to obtain this book and will be enjoyed,particularly by people new to Escher's work.The fact that this edition has now come out speaks volumes about what a great book this was,and it's great to see it available again.

Probably the best book written about dutch graphic artist MC Escher (by Bruno Ernst, an admirer of Escher that would become a close friend). Not only the book contains a great deal of graphic material, but there are also details about Escher's life not known elsewhere. The books covers a great deal about his early life, his travels to Italy in the 1920s, his life there, his exile into Switzerland after the fascists imposed uniforms on his children, his return to the Netherlands right before the Second World War. Remarkably, this artist revered by mathematicians for his representations of different types of symmetry and mathematical concepts, knew little math himself. He was a rather introverted artist, who had an ambivalent opinion about his own work.

The greatness of this book on the work of M.C. Escher is that it shows how he worked up his ideas for various pieces. It also gives a thorough explanation of his thought and design process. It is truely a shame that this book has gone out of print. I sincerely hope that the publisher brings it back.

In The Magic Mirror of M.C. Escher, Bruno Ernst, an acquaintance of Escher's until Escher's death in 1972, presents a thorough summary of the life and work of Escher. Ernst devotes a chapter to the life of Escher, and uses the rest of the book to describe his amazing work. He includes the different themes and styles that Escher used, and devotes a good amount of space to each work discussed. The book is extremely thorough and includes large clear illustrations of the works themselves and also of earlier drafts of the works and mathematical descriptions to assist the reader. This is the most concise book of Escher and his work I have ever seen, and Ernst has done a fabulous job on it.