Escher and the ophthalmologist

The Dutch graphic artist, Maurits C. Escher (1898-1972) is famous for intricate and sometimes illusory images which challenge our sensibility. Over many years, from the 1920s to the 1960s, he made designs with interlocking figures that confuse the distinction between object and background. His correspondence and writings suggest that these designs were largely self-created until the 1950s when fame brought him increasingly into contact with scholars from disciplines such as mathematics, crystallography, and psychology. One of these contacts was with an ophthalmologist, Johan W. Wagenaar (1911-), who had been using Escher's designs to illustrate lectures about vision during night driving. A correspondence began that extended for almost a decade and altered Escher's concept of his own work. It is an intriguing footnote to the career of this extraordinary artist.