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The book and article reviews discussed here are
primarily aimed at those that specifically concern themselves with the creation of Escher-like tessellations,
or at least have a chapter or of a dedicated series of pages devoted to the
subject, rather than that of tessellations as a subject per se. Additionally;
I add my own critiques of the Escher–like tessellations produced where
appropriate. Although these books and articles are purporting ‘how to do
Escher-like tessellation art’, none of these can be said to have inspired me
in any way. Indeed, most, but not all, that I have seen are lacking in
quality, the representational tessellations shown of a decidedly inferior
standard that are unworthy of showing, caused mainly by a lack of
understanding of the inherent intricacies of the differing requirements of
different motifs. Indeed, no published book or article really addresses the
understanding of the issue (as outlined in my various essays), to the depth I
would like, and so without this their attempts invariably fail, to lesser, or
as is more usually, greater degrees. However, although such efforts could be
summarily dismissed, these are examined so that one can learn from such
shortcomings. As such, the book should be thought to be better medium in
which to discuss Escher-like tessellation design, in that it allows the
subject to be discussed in greater depth, over pages of essentially unlimited
extent. In contrast, articles, of generally up to four pages, do not permit
such luxuries, the material generally being condensed of necessity.
Therefore, more leeway is given to articles in this regard below as regards critique.
To quickly enable an overview
and to avoid lengthy and repetitive descriptions in the critiques section, I
describe the tessellations succinctly with
one word descriptions, from six categories of assessment: Unacceptable, Poor,
Reasonable, Good, Excellent, Superlative, which speak for themselves.
Occasionally, some are borderline between two categories; these I signify
with a hyphen, such as ‘Good-Excellent’. These are then generally followed by
explanatory discussions and comments. The various books and articles are
placed as according substance, either ‘major’ or ‘minor’. Unfortunately, time
does not permit me to discuss some of these in detail as much as I would
like, and so the comments below should be borne with this aspect in mind. I
hope to add to these at a later date. Paradoxically, the examples
given can for the greater part be best described as how not to do tessellation, and so in their own right are informative
as examples of inferior ones to be avoided. Amongst books of undoubted worth,
there are some absolute shockers here…
Books and Articles Reviewed:
Major:
1. Creating Escher Type Drawings, by E. R. Ranucci & J. L.
Teeters (Article)
2. Introduction to Tessellations, by Dale Britton & Jill Seymour
(Book)
3. Designing Tessellation – The Secrets of Interlocking Patterns, by
Jinny Beyer (Book)
4. Designing and Drawing Tessellations, by Robert Fathauer (Book)
5. Parcelles d’infini, by Alain Nicolas (Book)
Minor:
6. Modern Mathematics Made Simple, by Patrick Murphy (Book)
7. Regelmatige vlakverdeling, by M. C. Escher (Book)
8. Tessellations File, by Chris De Cordova (Book)
9. How to Draw Tessellations of the Escher Type, by Joseph L.
Teeters (Article)
10. Rolling a Tetrahedron, by Kodi Husimi (Article)
Created: 25 September 2009. Revised 17 July 2012
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