M.C. Escher’s Braided Visions

The Posthuman Legacy of a Popular Artist

M.C. Escher, Circle Limit (Heaven and Hell) (Detail), Woodcut, 1960 (Fair Use)

We trust artists to create worlds for us. The painter and the graphic artist will use tricks of illusion to create a virtual three-dimensional reality on a two-dimensional plane.

These worlds — even if they are fantastical — have a sufficient degree of realism to allow us to suspend our sense of disbelief, to use our…