Kaleidoscope based on Snakes, by M. C. Escher. Woodcut print, 1969.
Maurits Cornelis Escher,
a 20th century Dutch artist famous for his etchings and illustrations, uses
painstaking perspective and geometry to create his art - challenging the
viewer to second guess what is physically possible.
Hyperbolic space and the idea of infinity can be
seen in his woodcut "Snakes". It depicts a disc made up of interlocking
circles which grow progressively smaller towards the center. There are three
snakes laced through the edge of the disc.
Snakes has rotational symmetry of order 3, comprising a single wedge-shaped
image which is repeated three times in a circle. The image is printed in
three colours: green, brown and black. This means that it was printed from
three blocks which were rotated on a pin to make three impressions each
