MIRRORKAL Escher

MIRRORKAL Escher

The Escher puzzle is a variation of the picture cube puzzle.

Many people know such a puzzle from their childhood.

Nine different cubes with picture fragments on each side have to be put together

to form six different pictures.

The idea behind this puzzle is relatively simple:

The puzzle consists of a frame and nine cubes. The frame has the same height as the cubes.

On each side of the frame are three picture fragments visible.

Each of the cube has a mirror which passes from the upper edge to the opposite bottom edge (along the diagonals)

and divides the cube into two parts. All nine cubes are transparent on two neighbouring sides.

The other four sides are with picture fragments. If a side with a picture fragment is next to a transparent side,

then you can see the picture from above. The reason is that the picture got reflected by the mirror.

It has a special charme to solve this puzzle:

At the beginning you only search for mirror-inverted picture fragments.

Some of the picture fragments are very similar to each other, as Escher's drawings were used as motives.

After finding all nine picture fragments, the cubes have to be put back into the frame.

This is not very easy, as the mirror-inverted picture gets reflected.

Thus, for each picture side, there are two to four possibilities.

Nevertheless each of the five tasks can be solved by analytical thinking.

The pictures have different difficulty levels.

Drawing Hands and Print Gallery are easiest to solve, Sky and Water 1 is most difficult.

Mirrorkal Escher is a bit similar to Mirrorkal Mona Lisa, but differs clearly from it.

The Mirrorkal Mona Lisa reveals through each sliding new picture fragments and lets others disappear.

To solve the Mirrorkal Escher, I search for mirror-inverted picture fragments

and think about the place and the direction of the cubes.

Moscovich succeeded in transforming a simple picture cube puzzle into a difficult puzzle.

I like especially the combination of picture search and logical conclusions.

Eschers motives match very well to this puzzle.

The puzzle is not only a mental challenge, but also an artistic pleasure.

It is a combination of puzzle and art.