Reutersvärd: One of the Founding Forefathers of Impossible Figures
Oscar Reutersvärd was a young student in Stockholm, Sweden during 1934, and he made history while attending Latin class. One day he began doodling in the margins of a text book during a long lecture. The doodle would launch Reutersvärd into the forefront in the history of illusionary art. Reutersvärd’s doodle started with an outline of a perfect six-pointed star. Once the star was complete he began to add cubes, placing them around the star nestled into the spaces between the points. As he worked on the drawing, Reutersvärd soon realized it represented something important, something new and paradoxical. He had rendered the world’s first premeditated impossible figure; The Impossible Triangle. A figure which at first appears reasonable but fails upon inspection to be real. An impossible figure cannot be built in 3 dimensions and can only exist in a 2 dimensional drawings. Fascinated by the triangle design Reutersvärd searched Stockholm’s libraries but could find nothing to explain its origins. Years later in 1958 Reutersvärd happened upon an article by Roger Penrose, in which Penrose explores the impossible tri-bar figure. Penrose, cofounder of the "Big Bang" theory in cosmology described the impossible triangle figure as, "…Impossibility in its purest form." Inspired by Penrose, Reutersvärd launched an in-depth, lifelong exploration into the world of impossible figures. He had already arrived at the impossible staircase design by 1950. A design he sketched while on a cross-country train ride. Later Reutersvärd’s endless staircase figure would inspire the great illustrator MC Escher to use the figure many times in his own work. Reutersvärd has produced a prodigious body of work during his long career. From his circum vitea comes the classic Devils Fork, sometimes called the Impossible Trident figure. Below is an example of an early "illusory body" design of the type which share properties with the devil’s fork. In 1984 the government of Sweden celebrated Oscar Reutersvärd’s lifetime of achievements by issuing a set of three stamps shown below. The first one shows the history-making tri-bar design, in the middle is a "proto-steps" meandering figure and the third stamp shows an impossible plane intersecting a square.Reustersvard’s ouvre is vast and utterly unique in its breadth and scope. No other artist has explored the realm of impossibility as deeply or as thoroughly. Popular artists, such as Escher did not employ impossible objects in their designs until Reutersvard had already done it. The seeds sown by his example are everywhere. Virtually all contemporary illusion designs are built from parts Reutersvärd first designed, and based upon concepts he had already explored. On his shoulders we stand. He is the father of impossible design.
