Leaf 337 – Art Inspired
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M.C. Escher - Rippled Surface (1950)
Two circles set vertically and overlapping,
rather like a Venn diagram, is an ancient symbol for water – ‘vesica piscis’ (Latin,
meaning ‘fish bladder’). The figure appears in the first proposition of Euclid’s
‘Elements’ as a means of producing an equilateral triangle (two, in fact, one
mirroring the other) by means of a compass and straight edge. I first came
across this symbol and its relationship to water at Glastonbury, where its
stylised motif has been used to decorate the cover of the Chalice Well – a sacred
spring. As such, it is also said to be a symbol of fertility, and of the divine,
representing the meeting point of the spiritual and the physical, of heaven and
earth (‘as above, so below’). Hence it is frequently used in Christian contexts, to depict a halo or
aureola, or the ichthys – fish symbol, an early motif for denoting Christ or
Christian belief/followers. I’ve often been taken by the way in which bodies of
water tend to refract in concentric circles, for instance when it rains, and
how when two or more such refractions meet they merge much in the same manner as
this ancient geometric symbol – similar to the way in which it is depicted here,
in this 1950 print by the artist, M.C. Escher, which has captured two ripples, two
concentric circles on the cusp of meeting under the moon.
Concentric
circles merge –
ripples on water.
