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Article: Tessellations, Making
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CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2002 The Gale Group Inc. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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Tessellations, Making
The Dutch artist Maurits Cornelius Escher was, more than anyone else, responsible for bringing the art of tessellations to the public eye. True, tessellations have been used for decorative purposes for centuries, but the cells were usually very bland: squares, equilateral triangles, regular hexagons, or
rhombuses
. The visual interest of such a tessellation lies in the pattern as a whole, not in the individual cells. But Escher discovered that the cells themselves could become an interesting part of the pattern. His tessellations feature cells in the shape of identifiable figures: a bird, a lizard, or a rider on horseback.
To create an Escher-style tessellation, ...