Complexity Analysis of Escher’s Art

Art is the output of a complex system based on the human spirit and driven by several inputs that embed social, cultural, economic and technological aspects of a given epoch. A solid quantitative analysis of art poses considerable difficulties and reaching assertive conclusions is a formidable challenge. In this paper, we adopt complexity indices, dimensionality-reduction and visualization techniques for studying the evolution of Escher’s art. Grayscale versions of 457 artworks are analyzed by means of complexity indices and represented using the multidimensional scaling technique. The results are correlated with the distinct periods of Escher’s artistic production. The time evolution of the complexity and the emergent patterns demonstrate the effectiveness of the approach for a quantitative characterization of art.