tessella - the Scientia Review

Case Study:
M. C. Escher was a Dutch graphic artist that was famous for the tessellations in
his art. Born in 1898, his family lived in Leeuwarden, the Netherlands before
moving to Arnhem. After high school he attended the Haarlem School of architecture
and design. After failing to become an architect, Escher decided to
study decorative arts. In 1937, he started to incorporate mathematics into his
Regular Division of the Plane III, woodcut, 1957 - 1958.
artwork which consisted mostly of
lithographs and woodcuts. From a paper
by George Polya, Escher learned
about the different symmetries used to
create tessellations. His 1936 Regular
Division of the Plane work and his
1937 work Metamorphosis I were some
of his first works to make use of tessellations.
In 1958, he published a book
called Regular Division of the Plane
that was composed of his previous
works that made use of tessellations.
His final work to use tessellations was
his Metamorphosis III which he made
The concept of this work (Metamorphosis I) is to morph one image into a tessellated pattern, then gradually to alter the
outlines of that pattern to become an altogether different image. From left to right, the image begins with a depiction of
the coastal Italian town of Atrani. The outlines of the architecture then morph to a pattern of three dimensional blocks.
These blocks then slowly become a tessellated pattern of cartoon like figures in oriental attire.
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