Dutch artist Maurits Escher was recognized as an image-maker beyond the world of arts, not represented in the artistic canon, and not the kind of individual one might expect. Escher was known for his depictions of stairwells, nesting universes, and fish that morph into flowers.
Escher’s art elements are in many different forms of merchandise, album arts, psychedelic posters, and tattoos. It has inspired elements of movies such as Christopher Nolan’s Inception and Jim Henson’s Labyrinth, and graced college dormitory room walls. The Nolan movie features a variation of Escher’s illusion, the so-called ‘Penrose Staircase’, that folds back on itself. On the other hand, Henson’s film has a room modeled after Escher’s lithographic piece of art entitled ‘Relativity’.
Despite the prevalence of Escher’s work, the world started to get proper museum exhibitions devoted to the artist’s career only years after his demise. From Robin Lutz’s new documentary, Journey to Infinity, we can learn how Escher felt about the above-mentioned and many other things regarding the artist. The documentary opened in February 2021 at Los Angeles’s Laemmle Theater Group’s ‘Virtual Cinema’ space.
The documentary’s visual images are an inventive blend of artworks and their animated versions, joined with vintage photos and modern interpretations of Escher’s iconic compositions. British actor-comedian Stephen Fry lends voice to Escher’s words for the narration in the documentary. The screenplay is composed out of Escher’s diaries, interviews with the artist’s grown-up kids, plus excerpts of lectures and often-caustic correspondence.
The script deals with matters, which include the following.
- Escher’s eternal desire
- The artist’s amazement at his images’ popularity among hippies who consume too many drugs
- His doubt that his alienation from the artistic community happened because he pursued wonder, whereas other artists sought beauty
The most recurring theme in the documentary is the elaborate and stunning choreography of both the interlocutions and schisms between mathematics and art. It is a treat to hear Escher’s evolution of the range and vision of his studies in his words. Enchanted by natural sciences, mathematics, and architecture, Escher was a printmaker at heart with finely detailed and incredibly elaborate works that somehow became baroque and futurist. Those artworks are the output of Escher’s mastery of abstract thought and analog craft.
For people who loved Escher’s works from a young age, it is perhaps surprising that those are block prints instead of drawings or paintings. Confronting the artist’s curmudgeonly disposition might be slightly shocking, too, no matter how gamely the inimitable Fry renders his words. Are you into Escher’s kind of work? If yes, you might find the documentary an intimate and fascinating session replete with gems.
On the other hand, it does not work in the form of a helpful introduction to the artist from a traditional documentary viewpoint. The premise of Lutz’s documentary may work only for individuals who know a thing or two about the art. The documentary has a noticeable lack of curators, art historians, publishers, and avid collectors who appear to outline Escher’s legacy. Even so, the lack of their voices creates more space for the artist’s voice to come through.
Our institutions may lack canonical presentations at a suitable level, but all bookstores, tote bag designer stores, and the internet are well-stocked in that regard. The inventive and quirky combination of monologue and documentary is essentially devoted to the act of exploring the unknowns about an all-time great artist.