![]() “Once I heard that an Escher exhibit was coming to the gallery, the idea of bringing in to talk about it in a Wing lecture was obvious,” says Gage, referring to the department’s George Milton Wing lecture series. It’s a message that Michael Gage, the professor of mathematics who invited Schattschneider to Rochester last fall, is eager to spread. Mathematics is really thinking through problems, posing problems, trying to find patterns.” “They are unaware that the majority of mathematics is not that, and in fact, these days, most of that has been relegated to computers. “Most people think math is numbers, formulas, equations, or algorithms,” Schattschneider says. The general public often interprets math in the same way. To him, math was what he encountered in his schoolwork, and consisted of manipulating complicated algebraic formulas and numbers. ![]() While Escher consulted mathematicians and scientific publications, he denied he had any mathematical aptitude. Schattschneider notes that many of Escher’s tessellations incorporate the geometric concepts of symmetry, foreground, and background, as well as the moving of shapes using translation, reflection, and rotation. She visited Rochester in November to speak in the Department of Mathematics as well as at the Memorial Art Gallery, in conjunction with the exhibit M. ![]() Schattschneider is an authority on geometry in the work of Escher, a Dutch artist best known for creating spatial illusions and tessellations-the tiling of a plane with one or more geometric shapes without gaps or overlaps. Doris Wood Schattschneider ’61, a mathematician, sees a complex combination of art and math. Most people who view the works of 20th-century artist M. 121 (below) uses geometric translation to create a tessellation with two-color symmetry. MATHEMATICAL ILLUSIONS: Escher explored the concepts of infinity and “impossible drawing.” His work Relativity (top) depicts three staircases with people climbing or descending while Fish/Bird No.
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