| Stars | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Artist | M. C. Escher |
| Year | 1948 |
| Type | wood engraving |
| Dimensions | 32 cm × 26 cm (13 in × 10 in) |
Stars is awood engravingprint created by the Dutch artistM. C. Escher in 1948, depicting twochameleons in apolyhedral cage floating through space.
Thecompound of three octahedra used for the central cage inStars had been studied before in mathematics, and Escher likely learned of it from the bookVielecke und Vielflache byMax Brückner. Escher used similar compound polyhedral forms in several other works, includingCrystal (1947),Study for Stars (1948),Double Planetoid (1949), andWaterfall (1961).
The design forStars was likely influenced by Escher's own interest in both geometry and astronomy, by a long history of using geometric forms to model the heavens, and by a drawing style used byLeonardo da Vinci. Commentators have interpreted the cage's compound shape as a reference to double and triple stars inastronomy, or to twinned crystals incrystallography. The image contrasts the celestial order of its polyhedral shapes with the more chaotic forms ofbiology.
Prints ofStars belong to the permanent collections of major museums including theRijksmuseum, theNational Gallery of Art, and theNational Gallery of Canada.
Stars is awood engraving print; that is, it was produced by carving the artwork into the end grain of a block of wood (unlike awoodcut which uses the side grain), and then using this block to print the image. It was created by Escher in October 1948.[1][2] Although most published copies ofStars aremonochromatic, with white artwork against a black background, the copy in theNational Gallery of Canada is tinted in different shades of turquoise, yellow, green, and pale pink.[3]
The print depicts a hollowed-outcompound of three octahedra, apolyhedral compound composed of three interlockingregular octahedra, floating in space. Numerous otherpolyhedra and polyhedral compounds float in the background; the four largest are, on the upper left, thecompound of cube and octahedron; on the upper right, thestella octangula; on the lower left, acompound of two cubes; and on the lower right, a solid version of the same octahedron 3-compound. The smaller polyhedra visible within the print also include all of the fivePlatonic solids and therhombic dodecahedron.[4][5] In order to depict polyhedra accurately, Escher made models of them from cardboard.[2]
Twochameleons are contained within the cage-like shape of the central compound; Escher writes that they were chosen as its inhabitants "because they are able to cling by their legs and tails to the beams of their cage as it swirls through space".[6] The chameleon on the left sticks out his tongue, perhaps in commentary;H. S. M. Coxeter observes that the tongue has an unusualspiral-shaped tip.[5]
Escher's interest in geometry is well known, but he was also an avid amateur astronomer, and in the early 1940s he became a member of the Dutch Association for Meteorology and Astronomy. He owned a 6 cmrefracting telescope, and recorded several observations ofbinary stars.[2]
The use of polyhedra to model heavenly bodies can be traced back toPlato, who in theTimaeus identified theregular dodecahedron with the shape of the heavens and its 12 faces with theconstellations of thezodiac.[7] Later,Johannes Kepler theorized that the distribution of distances of the planets from the sun could be explained by the shapes of the fivePlatonic solids, nested within each other. Escher kept a model of this system of nested polyhedra, and regularly depicted polyhedra in his artworks relating to astronomy and other worlds.[2]
Escher learned his wood engraving technique fromSamuel Jessurun de Mesquita.[6] He illustrated the octahedral compound ofStars in the beveledwire-frame style that had been used byLeonardo da Vinci in his illustrations forLuca Pacioli's 1509 book,De divina proportione.[4][5][8]
Thestella octangula (Latin for "eight-pointed star") in the upper right ofStars was first described by Pacioli, and later rediscovered by Kepler, who gave it its astronomical name.[9]H. S. M. Coxeter reports that the shape of the central chameleon cage inStars had previously been described in 1900 byMax Brückner, whose bookVielecke und Vielflache includes a photograph of a model of the same shape. Coxeter, believing that Escher was not aware of this reference, wrote "It is remarkable that Escher, without any knowledge of algebra or analytic geometry, was able to rediscover this highly symmetrical figure."[5] However,George W. Hart has documented that Escher was familiar with Brückner's book and based much of his knowledge of stellated polyhedra and polyhedral compounds on it.[10]
Martin Beech interprets the manypolyhedral compounds withinStars as corresponding todouble stars andtriple star systems in astronomy.[2] Beech writes that, for Escher, the mathematical orderliness of polyhedra depicts the "stability and timeless quality" of the heavens, and similarlyMarianne L. Teuber writes thatStars "celebrates Escher's identification with Johannes Kepler's neo-Platonic belief in an underlying mathematical order in the universe".[11]
Alternatively, Howard W. Jaffe interprets the polyhedral forms inStarscrystallographically, as "brilliantly faceted jewels" floating through space, with its compound polyhedra representingcrystal twinning.[12]However, R. A. Dunlap points out the contrast between the order of the polyhedral forms and the more chaotic biological nature of the chameleons inhabiting them.[13] In the same vein, Beech observes that the stars themselves convey tension between order and chaos: despite their symmetric shapes, the stars are scattered apparently at random, and vary haphazardly from each other.[2] As Escher himself wrote about the central chameleon cage, "I shouldn't be surprised if it wobbles a bit."[2]
A closely related woodcut,Study for Stars, completed in August 1948,[2][14] depicts wireframe versions of several of the same polyhedra and polyhedral compounds, floating in black within a square composition, but without the chameleons. The largest polyhedron shown inStudy for Stars, astellated rhombic dodecahedron, is also one of two polyhedra depicted prominently in Escher's 1961 printWaterfall.[4]
Thestella octangula, a compound of two tetrahedra that appears in the upper right ofStars, also forms the central shape of another of Escher's astronomical works,Double Planetoid (1949).[5] Thecompound of cube and octahedron in the upper left was used earlier by Escher, inCrystal (1947).[9]
Escher's later workFour Regular Solids (Stereometric Figure) returned to the theme of polyhedral compounds, depicting a more explicitly Keplerian form in which the compound of the cube and octahedron is nested within the compound of the dodecahedron and icosahedron.[13]
Stars was used ascover art for the 1962anthologyBest Fantasy Stories edited byBrian Aldiss,[15]and for a 1971 Italian edition of occult guidebookThe Morning of the Magicians.[16] It also formed the frontispiece for a 1996 textbook oncrystallography.[12]
As well as being exhibited in theEscher Museum, copies ofStars are in the permanent collections of theRijksmuseum,[17]National Gallery of Art,[18]Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum,[19]Boston Public Library,[20]and theNational Gallery of Canada.[3]
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