Comments on: Tessellations

Tessellations

nickyskye — Fri, 17 Jun 2005 21:45:35 -0800

Tessellations are mathematically created images. Trompe L'oeil geometry that is a visual cousin to surrealism , visual games and mosaics.

By: anastasiav

anastasiav — Fri, 17 Jun 2005 23:00:19 -0800

Previously, on Metafilter.... No, this is NOT a doublepost callout; same topic, different links

By: peacay

peacay — Sat, 18 Jun 2005 01:49:39 -0800

Thanks nickyskye. Sublime stuff. Too bad the trompe l'oeil paintings weren't bigger - it's a little hard to mesh with the magic. There's contemporary trompe l'oeil works around too. Thanks for the other links anastasiav - I was enamoured with Escherisms when I was young. They still hit the sweet spot.

By: PeterMcDermott

PeterMcDermott — Sat, 18 Jun 2005 02:42:41 -0800

I'm not sure that there's an inherent relationship between tesselations and surrealism, though one certainly exists in the work of Escher. The stuff at the 'visual games' link was vile, but the trompe l'oeil work was sublime.

By: furtive

furtive — Sat, 18 Jun 2005 06:36:52 -0800

This was much cooler than I expected. Great post! BTW, some of them are animated gifs which could tile nicely as a background on a site, while others are vector based flash so if you right click and zoom things still look amazing (but bigger!).

By: alumshubby

alumshubby — Sat, 18 Jun 2005 08:00:28 -0800

The bird one reminds me of an Escher-print necktie I haven't worn since the late 1980s.

By: nickyskye

nickyskye — Sat, 18 Jun 2005 08:14:42 -0800

I think the optical illusion aspect of tessellations connect them with surrealism's reality warping and adds an element of playful symmetry. Thanks peacay for the amazing the trompe l'oeil link. Here's one to make your own tessellations online.

By: Zurishaddai

Zurishaddai — Sat, 18 Jun 2005 08:25:29 -0800

There's an interesting story about an amateur, Marjorie Rice (PDF article) who, messing around at home, discovered four of The 14 Different Types of Convex Pentagons that Tile the Plane.

By: nickyskye

nickyskye — Sat, 18 Jun 2005 10:45:00 -0800

Yes, Zurishaddai that geometry is way cool, it's interesting to examine the aesthetics of symmetry in tangible objects or conceptually as curious. There is a sublime geometry in these paintings by Nicholas Roerich and mesmerizing beauty in animated 3-D math. Some of the language of mathematical graphics is charmingly silly, such as Apollonian Gasket or Witch of Agnesi.

By: jepler

jepler — Sat, 18 Jun 2005 17:04:27 -0800

Ghost Diagrams creates patterns from tiles on a square or hexagonal grid. Neat, but needs Python and GTK to run.

By: taz

taz — Sun, 19 Jun 2005 04:49:44 -0800

Thanks, nickyskye - I'm a big fan of tessellations, but I hadn't seen some of these. Lots of fun.

By: peacay

peacay — Sun, 19 Jun 2005 05:58:12 -0800

And don't forget Truchet tiling - aah but I see you've found wolfram - I just stumbled across this page. (oh, that 'make your own tesselations' was good value) I'm much more enamored with the art than than the mathematical gooeyness of it all

By: Quietgal

Quietgal — Sun, 19 Jun 2005 10:48:30 -0800

Wonderful links! Thanks, nickyskye!