ORLANDO, FL.- Get a new perspective when you explore the creative process of one of the world's most popular and intriguing artists of the 20th century - Maurits Cornelis Escher (1898-1972) - with more than 80 prints and drawings from the 1920s through the 1960s in the exhibition M.C. Escher: Rhythm of Illusion at the Orlando Museum of Art (OMA), August 13 through October 30, 2005.

M. C. Escher has earned worldwide renown for his precisely rendered visual illusions that range from an image of never-ending steps to a flock of geese flying in two directions at once. A wide cross-section of people, from connoisseurs of graphic arts to the scientific community, has found his work challenging and captivating. Organized by the Portland Art Museum, Oregon, this exhibition will lead viewers to see that, through his innate sense of intellectual curiosity regarding the laws of nature and their persuasively deceptive visual effects on the mind's eye, Escher created in two dimensions a world of fantastic spatial and planar geometric rhythm - precise illusions of his own making.

The exhibition is sponsored in part by The American Institute of Architects Orlando Chapter and its Members. M. C. Escher: Rhythm of Illusion is divided between the two broad periods of Escher's mature work. During the first period, from 1924-1935, he lived in Italy and created prints and drawings based mostly on observed sources, such as landscapes. The second period, 1935-1969, is marked by Escher's departure from Italy and a turning inward for the source of his ideas. In this span of 34 years, he created the large body of purely imaginative works for which he is so well known today.

Escher was enchanted by the Italian landscape. For months he would travel and sketch the picturesque villages perched on cliffs or hilltops. The compact jumble of ancient houses and narrow maze-like streets seemed to have fascinated him. Even decades after he left Italy, elements of this landscape and its architecture continued to reappear in his work.

Escher's Italian landscapes are often distinguished by their unusual and dramatic perspectives. Some show a bird's-eye panorama and others such as Street in Scanno, Abruzzi, 1930, bring the view down to ground level. The narrow, high-walled street heightens the visual effect of receding perspective. The street drops away down a hill, while along its side are several sets of stairs, an assortment of doors and windows and a couple of shadowy figures. The scene hints at Escher's later convoluted visual puzzles such as Relativity, 1953.

Following the death of one of his brothers, Escher created a suite of prints titled Days of Creation, 1926. In these works, Escher uses the expressive effects of light and dark and pattern and line to convey a feeling of mystery.

In 1935, Escher and his wife decided to leave Italy to escape the political turmoil brought on by the rise of Fascism. Between 1935 and 1941, they lived in Switzerland and Belgium. After the German army invaded Belgium in 1940, they returned to Holland, where Escher spent the rest of his life.

In 1936, Escher and his wife traveled again through the Mediterranean, a journey that would change the course of his work. For several days they visited the Alhambra in Granada, Spain. Escher had been there in 1922 and was impressed by the decorative tile work that covered the walls of this 14th-century Moorish palace. The tiles formed complex, interconnected geometric patterns, which, because of the traditional Islamic prohibition against certain types of imagery, were largely abstract. Escher and his wife spent their time copying the patterns and creating an inventory of the designs. These drawings became the basis of much of Escher's later work.

Using the Alhambra drawings as the underlying geometric structure, Escher set out to devise his own system for making patterns. Unlike the abstract designs found in the Alhambra tiles, Escher used recognizable shapes of creatures such as birds, fish and lizards. Escher called his method "the regular division of the plane." The patterns he created are characterized by a field of shapes that share adjoining edges but neither overlap nor leave gaps. Some of these patterns were adopted for use in more formal and complex works. Two examples that use "the regular division of the plane" are the masterpiece Day and Night, 1938, and Liberation, 1955.