WEBVTT - Selects: MC Escher and His Trippy Art 0:00:00.680 --> 0:00:03.640 Hi, everybody. Chuck here on a Saturday. I'm just sitting 0:00:03.680 --> 0:00:07.960 here drawing cubes and things with my poor artwork. But 0:00:08.000 --> 0:00:10.160 you know who was really good at this? Mc Esher 0:00:10.520 --> 0:00:13.320 And this episode from December twenty nineteen gets all into 0:00:13.320 --> 0:00:16.239 the life of the great artist. And the title is 0:00:16.360 --> 0:00:19.640 mc esher and his Trippy Art. I hope you enjoy it. 0:00:24.160 --> 0:00:31.920 Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of iHeartRadio. 0:00:33.640 --> 0:00:35.120 Hey, and welcome to the podcast. 0:00:35.159 --> 0:00:37.640 I'm Josh Clark, and there's Charles W Chuck Bryant, and 0:00:37.640 --> 0:00:40.199 there's Jerry over there, and this is Stuff you Should Know. 0:00:40.960 --> 0:00:42.519 The Arts Sea. 0:00:42.520 --> 0:00:45.000 Edition is Jerry Roomtone. Roland. 0:00:45.520 --> 0:00:47.839 Yeah, I think that's make believe stuff. 0:00:49.159 --> 0:00:49.680 Room tone. 0:00:49.760 --> 0:00:49.919 Yeah. 0:00:50.000 --> 0:00:51.479 She might as well be like, let me capture a 0:00:51.479 --> 0:00:53.280 few fairies in this, Mason jow First. 0:00:54.160 --> 0:00:55.400 I think it's the same thing. 0:00:55.280 --> 0:00:59.040 We may need us in the final edit. Perry, I 0:00:59.040 --> 0:01:01.160 don't know what it is about to explain to everyone. 0:01:01.240 --> 0:01:03.560 Room tone is you do this on film sets and 0:01:03.600 --> 0:01:07.319 in studios where you just make everyone sit completely silently 0:01:08.080 --> 0:01:10.880 while you capture the sound of the room. So I 0:01:10.880 --> 0:01:12.640 guess you can. What do you do with that, Joe? 0:01:12.680 --> 0:01:14.319 Do you layer it in in case you need it 0:01:14.400 --> 0:01:16.600 or something. Did you hear that? Everyone? 0:01:16.760 --> 0:01:20.400 She said, she cleans up the background to everybody listening. 0:01:20.400 --> 0:01:21.080 It sounded like. 0:01:23.240 --> 0:01:25.479 There's something about it. Though. It's like being in church 0:01:25.760 --> 0:01:28.200 and getting the giggles. Like it's really hard, especially on 0:01:28.200 --> 0:01:30.240 a film set when there's like fifty people standing around 0:01:31.040 --> 0:01:32.120 being completely silent. 0:01:32.280 --> 0:01:35.679 I suspect it's strictly a power trip, you think, So 0:01:35.840 --> 0:01:38.440 the person calling for a room tone, that's what I think. 0:01:38.600 --> 0:01:40.240 I'm going to start doing that my house when things 0:01:40.280 --> 0:01:41.440 get out of hand room tone? 0:01:42.120 --> 0:01:43.120 Do you think that works? 0:01:43.360 --> 0:01:46.679 Don't make me bust out the room tone on you? Well, 0:01:46.720 --> 0:01:49.720 since this no, no, I was going to say, since 0:01:49.760 --> 0:01:52.920 we're talking about room tone, obviously, the topic today is 0:01:53.040 --> 0:01:56.840 mc escher, who is well known for going berserk anytime 0:01:56.920 --> 0:02:01.160 someone asked him to be quiet for room tone, trash chairs, 0:02:02.080 --> 0:02:05.480 grab reptiles straight out of the two dimensions and throw 0:02:05.520 --> 0:02:08.079 them into the third dimension, just do all sorts of weird. 0:02:07.920 --> 0:02:08.800 Stuff that's funny. 0:02:09.240 --> 0:02:11.680 Did you think so that was a joke just for you? 0:02:12.200 --> 0:02:14.720 Yeah? So he everyone knows mc es or. If you've 0:02:14.720 --> 0:02:17.840 ever been to college or taken drugs. 0:02:18.240 --> 0:02:21.040 Or sold drugs to somebody in college. 0:02:21.040 --> 0:02:26.160 Then you've probably seen hands drawing hands or I mean, 0:02:26.160 --> 0:02:27.680 that's not what the name of that one. 0:02:27.440 --> 0:02:29.640 Was, but it's called drawing hands, oh is it? 0:02:30.360 --> 0:02:33.480 Or the Some of his more famous ones are the 0:02:33.480 --> 0:02:38.760 these impossible rooms like stairs that lead to sideway stairs 0:02:38.800 --> 0:02:40.679 but you got to wrap your head around it in 0:02:40.720 --> 0:02:43.000 a certain way to even make sense of it, all. 0:02:42.680 --> 0:02:45.200 Right, or stairs that lead into other stairs that lead 0:02:45.240 --> 0:02:46.520 back into the other stairs. 0:02:46.560 --> 0:02:47.720 Sure this is constant. 0:02:48.040 --> 0:02:50.320 Or I'm a big fan of that one self portrait 0:02:50.360 --> 0:02:53.960 he did in the with the sphere. Yeah, the mirror sphere, 0:02:54.120 --> 0:02:54.760 mirror sphere. 0:02:54.840 --> 0:02:56.520 Yeah, it's cool, it is very cool. 0:02:56.840 --> 0:02:59.079 I'm not crazy about the face, even though I'm sure 0:02:59.080 --> 0:03:02.400 he did it exactly precise, but the hand, if you 0:03:02.440 --> 0:03:05.000 look at the hand, it's really realistic. 0:03:05.040 --> 0:03:05.840 It's very pretty. 0:03:06.120 --> 0:03:07.840 Yeah, I mean I like this stuff. This is not 0:03:07.960 --> 0:03:10.160 my style, as in anything I would put on my 0:03:10.200 --> 0:03:14.080 walls these days, but I still think he's one of 0:03:14.080 --> 0:03:18.040 the coolest, more innovative artists out there. 0:03:18.240 --> 0:03:18.760 Yeah. 0:03:18.800 --> 0:03:21.880 And there's a great factoid that I hope will hold 0:03:21.919 --> 0:03:24.120 till the end, which not the end but kind of 0:03:24.120 --> 0:03:27.000 where it falls in our So what an outline? 0:03:27.040 --> 0:03:29.280 What does factoid mean against I mean you've killed ten 0:03:29.320 --> 0:03:31.520 percent of all the facts, that's right, and this is 0:03:31.560 --> 0:03:33.280 just one of the ten percent remaining. 0:03:33.360 --> 0:03:33.720 That's right. 0:03:33.800 --> 0:03:39.000 Okay, gotcha. So one of the things you chuck about MC. 0:03:39.120 --> 0:03:41.640 I sure that I found was that if you were 0:03:41.680 --> 0:03:45.280 impressed by his work, prepared to get exponentially more impressed 0:03:45.280 --> 0:03:48.360 as we talk about how he made those works. Well too, 0:03:48.480 --> 0:03:50.800 that's the fact of the show too for me. Oh okay, 0:03:50.800 --> 0:03:51.600 that's the factoid you. 0:03:51.720 --> 0:03:52.640 Yeah, you got a hold onto that. 0:03:52.680 --> 0:03:55.080 Oh sure, sure, sure sure. I was just teasing it 0:03:55.120 --> 0:03:57.040 a little bit. I didn't know that's what you're talking about, 0:03:57.040 --> 0:03:59.920 although I should have guessed. Yeah. So this is a 0:04:00.240 --> 0:04:02.840 talking about an artist, which means that we should probably 0:04:02.880 --> 0:04:06.640 talk about the artist being born. And in the case 0:04:06.680 --> 0:04:14.040 of MC Escher, whose name, by the way, was Moritz Cornelis, 0:04:14.160 --> 0:04:16.360 I want to say Cornelius, but there's no U in there. 0:04:16.400 --> 0:04:17.560 I think Cornelis. 0:04:17.960 --> 0:04:22.120 Sure Esher, I nailed the last nurme. That's right, But 0:04:22.200 --> 0:04:23.960 I misspoke on name. 0:04:24.880 --> 0:04:26.240 Oh you didn't say the name nrme. 0:04:27.160 --> 0:04:28.640 So I nailed the last nurme. 0:04:29.720 --> 0:04:31.760 This is the point where the people say, get to 0:04:31.800 --> 0:04:33.280 the point already. 0:04:32.960 --> 0:04:36.120 Well we are at that point. That's MC and then 0:04:36.240 --> 0:04:41.400 Esher born June seventeenth, eighteen ninety eight, not nineteen eighty nine, 0:04:42.240 --> 0:04:45.240 as the Grabster put it. Yeah, it was like, man, 0:04:45.360 --> 0:04:50.360 he's like, here's the numbers. He was born in leu Warden, Netherlands, 0:04:51.240 --> 0:04:54.960 grew up in Arnheim, which is about sixty miles southeast 0:04:55.480 --> 0:04:56.440 of Amsterdam. 0:04:56.640 --> 0:04:57.120 Is that right? 0:04:57.560 --> 0:05:00.200 Yeah? Okay, I mapped all this stuff out nice, kind 0:05:00.240 --> 0:05:01.040 of that general area. 0:05:01.200 --> 0:05:03.520 He went on a little Google tour. 0:05:03.480 --> 0:05:07.920 Sure, and he signed even from early on as MCE 0:05:08.240 --> 0:05:12.279 he signed his paintings, although people called him mock m 0:05:12.320 --> 0:05:14.760 a UK friends and family. 0:05:14.800 --> 0:05:17.680 Right, which didn't mean anything, Ed points out. But it's 0:05:17.720 --> 0:05:21.600 just like, you know, an affectionate term for Moritz. Yeah, 0:05:21.720 --> 0:05:22.520 is it Mouritz? 0:05:23.279 --> 0:05:26.320 Probably Maritz Maurites, cornelis Escher, but. 0:05:26.320 --> 0:05:28.960 It could also go the way of Morris. So is 0:05:28.960 --> 0:05:30.400 it Moritz or more? 0:05:30.720 --> 0:05:31.200 I don't know. 0:05:31.960 --> 0:05:33.200 I wish I knew. 0:05:33.640 --> 0:05:36.760 Well. What we do know is that in this we 0:05:36.800 --> 0:05:38.880 should put a pin in because it sort of plays 0:05:38.920 --> 0:05:41.080 a big part in how he pursued his art. But 0:05:41.800 --> 0:05:43.120 his dad had some money. 0:05:43.400 --> 0:05:46.000 He was a rich kid, yeah for sure. 0:05:45.800 --> 0:05:49.160 Which really helps. As we'll see as he's trapesing around Europe. 0:05:49.600 --> 0:05:54.680 On dad's dime, slowly getting better at art slowly. 0:05:55.320 --> 0:05:58.640 Yeah, that's a good point, because he was not great 0:05:58.680 --> 0:06:02.840 in school. He did love drawing class, but apparently wasn't 0:06:03.040 --> 0:06:06.040 you know, he didn't have his second grade teachers falling 0:06:06.080 --> 0:06:08.359 over themselves about what a talented artist he was. 0:06:08.680 --> 0:06:11.640 No, and apparently he also didn't consider himself much of 0:06:11.680 --> 0:06:14.919 an artist, although he engaged in art like he did 0:06:15.240 --> 0:06:18.920 produce art from a very young age. He was terrible 0:06:18.960 --> 0:06:22.599 in school, except at math and at drawing. Apparently when 0:06:22.640 --> 0:06:25.400 he was in grade school primary school he failed as finals, 0:06:26.000 --> 0:06:28.279 all of them except for math. And I read that 0:06:28.360 --> 0:06:32.400 his father noted in his journal with some affection that 0:06:32.800 --> 0:06:37.080 his son consoled himself by producing a lina type of 0:06:37.120 --> 0:06:41.159 a sunflower. That's how he made himself feel better after 0:06:41.200 --> 0:06:42.320 failing out of school. 0:06:42.880 --> 0:06:46.280 Well, and he was somewhat adept at math early on. 0:06:46.440 --> 0:06:51.160 But it's interesting his work is highly mathematical as far 0:06:51.200 --> 0:06:53.880 as art goes, but later on in life, when he 0:06:53.960 --> 0:06:58.479 was confronted with real mathematicians, he would sort of be like, no, 0:06:58.560 --> 0:07:01.560 not me, man, I'm an artist. Well, I'm not that 0:07:01.680 --> 0:07:03.200 kind of mathematician. 0:07:02.839 --> 0:07:04.760 So I said yes. But he was most of his 0:07:04.839 --> 0:07:08.520 friends were mathematicians. For most of his career, he was 0:07:08.600 --> 0:07:12.280 mostly appreciated by mathematicians and scientists. Those are the people 0:07:12.280 --> 0:07:16.960 who really vibed on his work and drugs that came later. 0:07:17.600 --> 0:07:20.000 That came later, and he got real popular. But I 0:07:20.040 --> 0:07:24.960 saw that somebody made a movie called Journey into Infinity documentary, 0:07:25.080 --> 0:07:26.000 full length documentary. 0:07:26.000 --> 0:07:26.800 I believe the whole. 0:07:26.600 --> 0:07:30.400 Thing's on YouTube, and it starts out. 0:07:30.560 --> 0:07:31.720 The trailer starts out with. 0:07:31.680 --> 0:07:35.800 Graham Nash saying, Hey, I called up mc esher one 0:07:35.840 --> 0:07:38.680 day just to say, mister Esher, I think you're a 0:07:38.680 --> 0:07:40.880 really great artist. That's all I wanted you to say. 0:07:41.360 --> 0:07:43.960 And he said, I don't consider myself an artist. I 0:07:44.040 --> 0:07:48.240 consider myself a mathematician. Oh really, yes, So I'm going 0:07:48.280 --> 0:07:52.120 with Graham Nash's interpretation as counter to this spoke to 0:07:52.200 --> 0:07:52.760 him directly. 0:07:52.880 --> 0:07:56.280 Yeah, yeah, I mean it's crazy. He I mean, not 0:07:56.320 --> 0:07:59.840 to spoil anything, but he died in nineteen seventy two 0:08:00.120 --> 0:08:03.440 at just seventy three. So you know, if he would 0:08:03.440 --> 0:08:06.280 have lived to his like mid eighties, which is somewhat reasonable, 0:08:08.000 --> 0:08:10.080 he would have been like alive in the eighties, which 0:08:10.120 --> 0:08:11.000 just seems so weird. 0:08:11.200 --> 0:08:13.520 It does seem kind of weird, you know, yeah, because 0:08:13.560 --> 0:08:18.120 he was. He seems countercultural for sure, even though him 0:08:18.240 --> 0:08:22.640 his personality was not very countercultural. No, and he didn't 0:08:22.640 --> 0:08:25.360 really have much love for hippies. In fact, he later 0:08:25.440 --> 0:08:28.520 said that the hippies in San Francisco are legally making 0:08:28.560 --> 0:08:35.360 copies of my work. He didn't exactly follow, you know, 0:08:35.480 --> 0:08:39.439 the normal usual beat throughout his lifetime. And he was 0:08:40.320 --> 0:08:42.240 a mathematician. He was a bit of a square, but 0:08:42.280 --> 0:08:44.280 he was also a very imaginative square. 0:08:44.640 --> 0:08:48.480 That's right. I was trying to make a square joke, 0:08:48.559 --> 0:08:49.880 but it's not coming to me. 0:08:50.480 --> 0:08:54.040 Remember that show, Square peg, square peg, square, yeah, square peg. 0:08:54.240 --> 0:08:57.080 Sarah Jesica Parker was she in that. She was also 0:08:57.120 --> 0:08:59.480 in Girls Just Want to Have Fun, That's right. 0:09:00.720 --> 0:09:03.480 Yeah, And I'm going to see her on Broadway next spring. 0:09:04.280 --> 0:09:07.040 Really yeah. She and her husband are co starring in 0:09:07.880 --> 0:09:10.800 Plaza Suite and Neil Simon's Plaza Sweet. Very nice, very 0:09:10.880 --> 0:09:14.040 excited about that. But I'm trying to align it with 0:09:14.080 --> 0:09:16.520 a Bonnie Prince Billy show. But they're like a week apart, 0:09:17.360 --> 0:09:19.800 and I'm like, I can't just stay in New York. 0:09:19.240 --> 0:09:22.679 Time to kill, especially when there's hourly flights between Atlanta 0:09:22.679 --> 0:09:23.200 and New York. 0:09:23.320 --> 0:09:25.160 I know, I may just go see Bonnie Prince Billy 0:09:25.200 --> 0:09:28.400 and come home because he didn't play much. But that's 0:09:28.400 --> 0:09:32.560 a story for another day, all right. So he goes 0:09:32.600 --> 0:09:37.199 to school at Technical College of Delft, not for very long, 0:09:37.800 --> 0:09:40.839 and then he went to the Harlem with two A's 0:09:41.400 --> 0:09:45.240 School of Architecture and Decorative Arts, which is west of Amsterdam, 0:09:45.480 --> 0:09:46.520 not Harlem, New York. 0:09:46.600 --> 0:09:48.199 Well, I think that's what the Harlem, New York is 0:09:48.280 --> 0:09:50.520 named after. Right, Yeah, that's where Bonnie Prince. 0:09:52.800 --> 0:09:53.560 He's at town Hall. 0:09:53.600 --> 0:09:55.760 Actually, Oh is that right? Yeah, we played there. 0:09:55.640 --> 0:09:58.240 That's right. We got our stink on that joint. So 0:09:58.920 --> 0:10:01.640 his dad said, you know, because you know, his dad 0:10:01.760 --> 0:10:03.880 had a lot of money and made money, and even 0:10:03.920 --> 0:10:06.120 though you want to support your kids, you want you 0:10:06.160 --> 0:10:08.160 want to try and edge them into something. Sure, if 0:10:08.160 --> 0:10:11.000 you're that kind of dude, that might be lucrative. So 0:10:11.040 --> 0:10:13.880 he said, hey, you like to draw shapes, why don't 0:10:13.920 --> 0:10:17.560 you go study architecture. And he did that for a 0:10:17.600 --> 0:10:20.559 little while, even though he wasn't super into it. But 0:10:20.600 --> 0:10:23.520 while at school there he had a very fortunate meeting 0:10:24.120 --> 0:10:28.640 by being mentored by one Samuel Jasurin Demisquita m. 0:10:29.400 --> 0:10:31.880 Who would be his mentor, who noticed some of his 0:10:32.080 --> 0:10:34.600 early art. I'm not sure how he saw it, but 0:10:34.760 --> 0:10:37.280 he took one look at Esher's art and said, you 0:10:37.520 --> 0:10:40.160 don't need to go into architecture. Come study under me 0:10:40.360 --> 0:10:43.839 and learn graphic design. And so Escher did. He became 0:10:43.880 --> 0:10:46.880 a graphic designer, which he whether he knew it or not, 0:10:46.920 --> 0:10:49.000 he had been his whole life up to that point. 0:10:49.440 --> 0:10:53.920 All of his work is very graphic in nature and designing. 0:10:54.559 --> 0:10:55.760 Yeah, it really really is. 0:10:55.840 --> 0:10:57.880 But I'm sure his dad in the early, you know, 0:10:58.000 --> 0:11:01.040 nineteen twenties was probably like, is that even a thing, right? 0:11:01.080 --> 0:11:02.000 That sounds made up? 0:11:02.080 --> 0:11:02.320 Yeah. 0:11:03.000 --> 0:11:04.400 Well, his dad also, I don't know if you said 0:11:04.480 --> 0:11:06.720 or not, was a civil engineer, so of course he 0:11:06.720 --> 0:11:09.440 would be like, you draw, just go do architecture, right, 0:11:09.559 --> 0:11:12.199 that's what I know, civil engineering, and there's architects in 0:11:12.240 --> 0:11:14.240 the world. Just go do the other thing that I 0:11:14.280 --> 0:11:14.719 don't do. 0:11:14.840 --> 0:11:17.280 And he probably thought graphic design just meant like you're 0:11:17.320 --> 0:11:18.760 gonna make signs. 0:11:19.040 --> 0:11:22.079 Right or post his stamps or Christmas paper, which he 0:11:22.120 --> 0:11:22.760 did later on. 0:11:22.880 --> 0:11:24.440 That's right, until he made a little bit of dough. 0:11:25.240 --> 0:11:29.120 So in the early nineteen twenties, he started on his 0:11:29.720 --> 0:11:34.160 sort of rich kid journey, traveling around Europe on his 0:11:34.240 --> 0:11:35.080 dad's dime. 0:11:35.000 --> 0:11:37.559 On a gap year that was really really long. 0:11:37.679 --> 0:11:41.280 Very long. But on one of these trips he went 0:11:41.320 --> 0:11:43.160 to a couple of places that would end up having 0:11:43.160 --> 0:11:46.240 a big influence on him. Yeah, one in Spain at 0:11:46.240 --> 0:11:50.920 the Alhambra, and then just traveling through southern Italy through 0:11:50.960 --> 0:11:51.599 the countryside. 0:11:51.679 --> 0:11:53.160 Yeah, he just fell in love with Italy. 0:11:53.520 --> 0:11:55.680 Yeah, but in Spain this is this is one that 0:11:55.679 --> 0:11:59.240 didn't bear fruit right away, but he was really fascinated 0:11:59.240 --> 0:12:05.040 by these mosaics and tesselations, which are described as. 0:12:06.080 --> 0:12:11.080 Okay, they are repeating designs that interlock with one another, 0:12:11.240 --> 0:12:13.480 leave no space between one another, and that when you 0:12:13.520 --> 0:12:17.200 fit them together they fully cover a plane, which is 0:12:17.880 --> 0:12:20.400 harder to do than you would think. 0:12:20.600 --> 0:12:24.720 Yeah, Like, if you've ever seen the esher fish sort 0:12:24.760 --> 0:12:26.000 of tesselation. 0:12:25.880 --> 0:12:29.720 The whitefish and the blackfish kind of working in one another. 0:12:29.559 --> 0:12:31.760 Yeah, that's a perfect example. And he would do this 0:12:31.840 --> 0:12:35.960 a lot later on. If you've ever played Cubert, Yeah, 0:12:36.280 --> 0:12:40.840 those cubes are tesselations, sure, a certain kind. But he 0:12:40.880 --> 0:12:43.280 got really into this, even though it wasn't like right 0:12:43.320 --> 0:12:45.719 away that he started doing these things that sort of 0:12:45.760 --> 0:12:47.920 came a little bit later. But what he did do 0:12:48.040 --> 0:12:51.640 was started drawing the Italian countryside because he loved it. 0:12:52.200 --> 0:12:54.880 Loved it, I mean, like he went to Italy, he 0:12:54.920 --> 0:12:55.800 was like, this is my home. 0:12:55.960 --> 0:12:56.240 Yeah. 0:12:56.280 --> 0:12:58.720 And he was quoted at one point in time as 0:12:58.720 --> 0:13:01.880 saying like he never wanted to be an Italian among Italians. 0:13:02.240 --> 0:13:06.319 He liked being a stranger, but he loved Italy, which. 0:13:06.160 --> 0:13:08.240 Is an interesting thing to say. I'm not exactly sure 0:13:08.280 --> 0:13:08.760 what it means. 0:13:08.800 --> 0:13:12.959 I think what he was saying was he he likes 0:13:13.080 --> 0:13:18.600 being a visitor to Italy rather than there's a certain 0:13:18.600 --> 0:13:20.960 amount of responsibility that comes with being one of us, 0:13:21.200 --> 0:13:22.880 you know what I mean. Whereas if you can be 0:13:23.000 --> 0:13:25.679 like that guy over there, who will accept him. We're 0:13:25.720 --> 0:13:27.079 not going to throw rocks at him every time we 0:13:27.160 --> 0:13:28.720 see him or anything like that, and we'll take his 0:13:28.760 --> 0:13:30.520 money and you know, maybe even say hi. 0:13:30.480 --> 0:13:32.200 To him or whatever, but we'll leave him alone. 0:13:32.200 --> 0:13:35.640 We won't include him in our expectations of what it 0:13:35.679 --> 0:13:38.400 means to be a local. Gotcha, That's what I think 0:13:38.400 --> 0:13:40.840 he was after. Clearly I can identify with that. 0:13:41.800 --> 0:13:43.600 Well. That kind of came through in his work too, 0:13:43.679 --> 0:13:47.680 because if you'll notice even in these, before he started 0:13:47.720 --> 0:13:51.959 doing the like trippy three dimensional handstrawing hands and stuff, 0:13:51.960 --> 0:13:54.480 when he was doing countrysides, he didn't do a lot 0:13:54.480 --> 0:13:57.120 of people, didn't do a lot of faces. People were 0:13:57.240 --> 0:14:00.640 very much in the background and nondescript. But even when 0:14:00.679 --> 0:14:03.080 you look at these, when you say Italian still lives 0:14:03.320 --> 0:14:07.959 of countrysides, what came to mind for me were these beautiful, lush, 0:14:08.000 --> 0:14:12.400 colorful recreations of a countryside. Nope, Nope, when you look 0:14:12.400 --> 0:14:14.440 at these, they still look very much like in the 0:14:14.559 --> 0:14:16.040 mc escher style that we all know. 0:14:16.320 --> 0:14:18.640 Yeah, like very clearly. A lot of love them too. 0:14:18.720 --> 0:14:19.160 They're cool. 0:14:19.200 --> 0:14:20.000 Yeah, they're beautiful. 0:14:20.040 --> 0:14:22.920 Yeah, they're black and white and then shades of gray, 0:14:22.960 --> 0:14:25.800 which is all just shading, right, Yeah, but they are 0:14:25.840 --> 0:14:27.400 beautiful in their way and lovely. 0:14:27.480 --> 0:14:29.760 Even I like this stuff more than the trippy stuff. 0:14:30.320 --> 0:14:32.160 Oh yeah, yeah, I mean this is something I would 0:14:32.160 --> 0:14:32.840 put on my wall. 0:14:33.200 --> 0:14:35.320 You're an art snob, You're like, oh, I only like 0:14:35.480 --> 0:14:37.560 Esher's early Italian landscapes. 0:14:39.040 --> 0:14:41.960 Oh man, you take that, say the trippy stuff for 0:14:42.000 --> 0:14:42.680 Graham Nash. 0:14:42.760 --> 0:14:43.640 I'm so ashamed. 0:14:43.880 --> 0:14:46.160 No, I think it's great, Chuck. You you have. 0:14:46.240 --> 0:14:52.360 Totally right but they are gorgeous. And then in nineteen 0:14:52.360 --> 0:14:54.040 twenty three he met his wife. 0:14:54.600 --> 0:14:56.640 His name was Jetta jedda Umaker. 0:14:57.040 --> 0:14:58.560 That's right, very nice, thank you. 0:14:58.880 --> 0:15:02.560 She was learned from the. 0:15:01.200 --> 0:15:03.920 They met her in Italy, but she was Swiss and 0:15:04.440 --> 0:15:06.480 she went home and they sent a bunch of love letters. 0:15:06.480 --> 0:15:09.400 It's a very sweet story. I'm sure an mcacsher movie 0:15:09.440 --> 0:15:10.720 would be pretty cool. 0:15:11.480 --> 0:15:15.360 Somebody wrote a script or they wrote a dissertation about 0:15:15.440 --> 0:15:19.040 the process of writing a script about mc esher. It's 0:15:19.080 --> 0:15:21.960 from University of Texas. I wrote it in twenty seventeen. 0:15:22.000 --> 0:15:25.120 I can't remember the name of it. But just look up. Oh, 0:15:25.280 --> 0:15:27.960 just some random stuff comes up if you look up 0:15:28.600 --> 0:15:32.560 mosquito bootprint, which will come up later. But if you 0:15:32.600 --> 0:15:35.240 search that on Google, it brings up Have you ever 0:15:35.280 --> 0:15:37.320 done that? Have you ever been like, I'm bored. I 0:15:37.360 --> 0:15:40.280 want to see what weird stuff I can unlock from Google. 0:15:40.800 --> 0:15:43.880 And it takes a certain amount of skill because Google 0:15:43.920 --> 0:15:46.200 wants to give you exactly what you're looking for. It 0:15:46.200 --> 0:15:49.280 doesn't want to give you just randomness, so you have 0:15:49.320 --> 0:15:52.200 to trick it. So maybe you'll you'll type in a 0:15:52.200 --> 0:15:55.080 weird word or the first three letters of a word 0:15:55.160 --> 0:15:58.160 or something like that, and weird stuff will start to come. 0:15:58.240 --> 0:16:01.520 Well if you type in mosquito. Probably only like the 0:16:01.520 --> 0:16:03.680 first three of them pertained to m cescher and the 0:16:03.720 --> 0:16:07.520 rest are just a random assortment of links. 0:16:07.880 --> 0:16:11.960 I remember, early in the days of Google, we had 0:16:11.960 --> 0:16:15.200 a mutual friend who they did this what I thought 0:16:15.240 --> 0:16:17.800 was a very dumb game where they would try and 0:16:17.920 --> 0:16:21.080 find two words together that they would try and produce 0:16:21.120 --> 0:16:24.240 the fewest amount of Google results. And whoever could put 0:16:24.280 --> 0:16:27.040 two words together that found the fewest one. Yeah, And 0:16:27.080 --> 0:16:28.680 I don't know if you remember them doing that, but 0:16:28.760 --> 0:16:30.640 so I don't know. I don't remember you talking about 0:16:30.640 --> 0:16:31.440 lost a waste of time. 0:16:31.480 --> 0:16:33.560 But I remember that some guy did, like a ted 0:16:33.600 --> 0:16:34.240 talk about that. 0:16:34.480 --> 0:16:36.560 Oh really yeah, Oh well, maybe I'm the dummy. 0:16:36.680 --> 0:16:37.960 No, no, no, it was. 0:16:38.960 --> 0:16:41.480 I mean, look at me. I'd like mcsher's early work. 0:16:42.360 --> 0:16:46.280 I think that's awesome. I mean, what taste. Yeah, you know. 0:16:46.640 --> 0:16:51.240 So he meets and gets married. She returns to Italy 0:16:51.280 --> 0:16:52.760 and they married nineteen twenty four. 0:16:52.840 --> 0:16:54.400 Do you mean Jeda Umaker. 0:16:54.600 --> 0:16:57.280 That's right. She would become Jeda Esher. 0:16:57.280 --> 0:16:59.280 Jeda Umiker Esher, and. 0:16:59.200 --> 0:17:03.080 They had a son named Georgio. Later had sons, Arthur 0:17:03.160 --> 0:17:07.240 and Jan and uh, they were still just sort of 0:17:07.280 --> 0:17:09.600 traveling and his dad was even though he was married, 0:17:09.800 --> 0:17:11.400 his dad was still footing the bill. 0:17:12.600 --> 0:17:16.359 Esher's dad father, Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, which I was just 0:17:16.400 --> 0:17:19.199 thinking about it. I was like, gosh, you know, I 0:17:19.240 --> 0:17:21.679 get a benefactor. Wake up every day and look at 0:17:21.720 --> 0:17:22.560 yourself in the mirror. 0:17:22.720 --> 0:17:26.480 But if you're if you're in the mirror sphere. 0:17:25.520 --> 0:17:27.560 Right, how do you and then how do you draw it? 0:17:27.920 --> 0:17:28.120 Yeah? 0:17:28.280 --> 0:17:33.800 So amazingly the the father Esher's father though, and like, 0:17:33.800 --> 0:17:35.800 what better way to spend your money than to just 0:17:35.800 --> 0:17:37.080 be like, this is what you want to do with 0:17:37.119 --> 0:17:39.920 your life, son, you want to pursue art and live 0:17:39.960 --> 0:17:42.439 in beautiful Italy than like here, this is what I 0:17:42.480 --> 0:17:43.160 want for you. 0:17:43.840 --> 0:17:45.960 And that's like, that's awesome. 0:17:46.080 --> 0:17:48.239 That's the pinnacle of what a parent can do for 0:17:48.280 --> 0:17:49.920 their child in a lot of ways. 0:17:50.040 --> 0:17:50.960 No, totally know. 0:17:51.000 --> 0:17:53.239 It's not like, hey, why don't you go, you know, 0:17:53.359 --> 0:17:55.520 take up Heroin and here's a bunch of money for 0:17:55.560 --> 0:17:57.119 you to like lay around in a BEFA. 0:17:57.840 --> 0:18:00.440 True I want to know more. I'm not I hope 0:18:00.440 --> 0:18:02.440 I'm not coming across his cynical but I wonder if 0:18:02.480 --> 0:18:06.159 some of this was like, he'll come around if I 0:18:06.600 --> 0:18:07.960 you know, to architecture or whatever. 0:18:08.040 --> 0:18:10.000 Right, you kept waiting for the part where his father 0:18:10.080 --> 0:18:13.880 cuts him off. I was his father apparently wouldn't like that. 0:18:14.600 --> 0:18:16.320 All right, I know how you feel. I'm not trying 0:18:16.359 --> 0:18:18.119 to talk you into my way of thinking. I'm not 0:18:18.119 --> 0:18:20.760 saying like I had. I started out thinking the same 0:18:20.760 --> 0:18:22.760 way you did. And then something happened. I was like, Oh, 0:18:22.760 --> 0:18:24.160 it was actually really neat of his dad. 0:18:24.280 --> 0:18:27.880 It was it all seems above board. Yeah. So World 0:18:27.920 --> 0:18:30.800 War Two has a profound effect on Esher and his work. 0:18:31.520 --> 0:18:35.719 In nineteen thirty five, he learned that they were making 0:18:35.720 --> 0:18:40.359 his nine year old son, Georgio, marching fascist youth parades, 0:18:40.920 --> 0:18:43.080 and he said, pack your bags, we're going to Switzerland. 0:18:43.200 --> 0:18:46.320 That is the appropriate response to that news. Yeah, we're 0:18:46.359 --> 0:18:49.560