Being fascinated by tessellations, of which I have managed to create quite a few (which you may view on my website http://www.ozzigami.com.au/, go to my tessellations and punography page) I went looking in my local library for references to MC Escher, who started it all. ( 'it' in this case meaning specifically lifelike tessellations since the word really just means 'tilings' which have been around longer than the Wheel!) There I found just 2 references, one is a big book of Escher's designs, "ESCHER The Complete Graphic Work" which oddly is not true to label, at least 2 of his tessellations, Sea-Horses and one of greyhound-like Dogs are missing! Anyway the other book is Jane Langton's "The Escher Twist". I have borrowed both books. Her title interested me strangely: a decade ago I wrote "A Yarn with an Escheresque Twist", an anecdotal account of a series of concatenating events which formed a sort of Moebius strip in my life. I'm going to put this on my blog, both this letter to you and my story, it's sort of interesting, (at least to me). As for Ms Langton's book, it's certainly a bit turgid and not necessarily very believable, and it ends up a lot neater than most things in life and death . . . but then . . . it is called "The Escher Twist", Escher's work is all of the above, (and in Spades, as they say) so that's fair eh!
Anyway, here's my 1996 story,
"A Yarn with an Escheresque Twist" :
Having developed some special nets for making the 5 Platonic Solids, I rang the SA Curriculum Centre to see if I could gee some interest at schools. I found myself talking to Will Morony, AAMT President. He was mildly interested in our nets, but told me he was planning to go to ICME 8, The International Convention of Mathematics Teachers, in Seville, Spain, in a few weeks, and that he wanted to find a tessellation to distribute there as a sort of Australian visiting card. I was astonished: I had mentioned nothing about tessellations, and I had no idea that mathematicians were even interested in them. Anyway I wasted no time in telling him about OZZIE the Magic Kangaroo; when he saw the design he said instantly that he would like to use it. I worked up a variation to fit on a peel-&-stick icosahedron (pretty!) and while in the throes of having it printed I visited the AAMT office. There I noticed the cover of AMT Vol 51 no 4 1995 edition, featuring a locally-made chessboard with a very clever surface design, an Escher-like lizard breaking through the squares. I contacted its creator, Mark Shearer of Glyph Fine Marquetry; within days he had produced a stunning OZZIE-tessellation chessboard, which attracted many compliments when displayed in Spain.
A few weeks later I received a phone call from Dr. Paul Scott, Associate Professor of Pure Mathematics at Adelaide University, and longtime Executive Editor of Australian Mathematics Teacher, (rated by many as the finest Mathematics Teachers journal in the Universe.) It transpired that Mark Shearer had mentioned OZZIE tessellation to Paul, who graciously invited me to write an AMT article. [ Me! - a Maths article !!! ]
When I went to meet Dr Scott at his office, I was delighted to spy his splendid collection of geometrical models: beautiful coloured stellations, some of which must have taken many many hours to make. Naturally I presented him with a set of our unique dazzling peel-&-stick polyhedral nets. Within a couple of days he rang me to tell me he had constructed the solids, and that they now occupied pride of place in the very centre of his collection! And best of all, he offered to review them in AMT.
OZZIE gloried in full colour as the centrefold in Vol 52 No 4 1996 issue of AMT. Two pages further on was Paul's glowing review of our Plato's Jewels. I will quote just these two key comments: ". . . brilliant! . . . Highly recommended!" (emphasis Dr Scott's)
Where does the Escherness come in . . ? . . Remember, I rang Will, intending to talk about Platonic Solids, but instead OZZIE Tessellation took centre stage. Then Paul rang me to talk about OZZIE, and our common interest in polyhedra took over, closing a kind of Moebius loop of events. Nice!
Friday, January 23, 2009
Wednesday, January 21, 2009
"TROMPE L'OEIL" Art ( or PUNOGRAPHY )
There is a whole raft of artwork generically referred to as trompe l'oeil ("fool the eye") art. French people would pronounce that "tromp ler-yee" but it's too damn hard for English-speakers, so we corrupt it to "tromp loy-ee". (The French say 'lingerie' "lanz-yair-ee", well what would they know, it's "londjeray" as all English speakers know.) Well anyway it's easier - and perhaps truer too - to call all kinds of trompe l'oeil art PUNOGRAPHY, (say it pun-og-graphy), meaning "art with ambiguity". There are many different types of trompe l'oeil: mirror art, curved mirror art, invertable art, optical illusions, impossible perspectives, oh never you mind, I'd never be able to name all the different types even if I tried, because some examples are unique to sole artists. One of the most famous and prolific trompe l'oeil arists was none other than Leonardo da Vinci, but I won't elaborate, you can find some examples yourself.
As I say there are many trompe l'oeil artists, but deservedly the most famous is MC Escher.
As I say there are many trompe l'oeil artists, but deservedly the most famous is MC Escher.
Thursday, January 15, 2009
Homage to Escher
I have written a bit about ("lifelike") Tessellations already, but I just can't leave the subject alone. I adore them, they hold a special fascination for me as little else ever has had. In this respect, as in others, I feel I am flowing willy-nilly along mental streams first explored by The Master, M C Escher.
It was Dutchman Escher (1898-1972), who discovered that creature-like forms could be drawn in such a way that the outline of one creature on one side would also form part of an outline of an identical, or similar, or completely different creature-like form on the other side. Nowhere in any previous civilization is there any record of anyone having created such a design. Escher himself found that fact astounding, and so do I. He said of his new insights into the regular division of the plane, "I am head over heels in love with it, and I still don't know why."
I first saw "Sky and Water", one of Escher's best-known designs in 1969, when he was still alive, and I thought it the most remarkable artwork I had ever seen. I have never changed my mind about that. On the contrary, Escher's work continued to grow on me, and fired me with the ambition to create some tessellations of my own.
I have just got hold of a copy of a book I last saw many years ago, "ESCHER: The Complete Graphic Work" (J.L. Locher Ed., Thames and Hudson, 1992, reprinted 1995). Strangely, it is not true to title, since at least 2 tessellations I know of are absent: one of greyhound-like Dogs, and one of Sea-Horses which is one of my very favourites. Whether there are others missing I do not know, but in any case what is there is astounding. Escher's draftsmanship, his "ordinary" drawings, his impossible perspective drawings, all of these are amazing - in fact they put the "MAZE" into amazing! - but I could never come within cooee of his skills and insights with regard to these aspects of his work, nor would I try. For all their quirky brilliance, none of them gets to me the way his lifelike tessellations do. That is where my interest begins and continues. It is only in this area - and not even all of that - that I have dared to attempt to create designs that I hope Escher would himself salute.
I wrote this ambition in verse, years ago:
Once I saw sketch of Escher's - Sky and Water is its name -
It's Ducks and Fishes actually, but precious just the same -
Those beasties blew my brainbox! - I was never so impressed ! -
So then I tried to tessellate - Put Escher under pressure, Mate!
- Well, excel them, at any rate:
To better Escher's best!
Why in verse? you cry. Well, because:
I've often thought, verse uses words
As Escher uses fish and birds:
Every image, still, yet living,
Bound by meter unforgiving,
And every rhyme must suit each sound
Of every meaning it wraps around,
And every line must hold its place
Like Escher's creatures, locked in space . . .
I write a great deal of rhyming verse, perhaps partly as self-consolation for not having Escher's facility with drawing. In particular I try to write pithy verses about my tessellating designs.
It was Dutchman Escher (1898-1972), who discovered that creature-like forms could be drawn in such a way that the outline of one creature on one side would also form part of an outline of an identical, or similar, or completely different creature-like form on the other side. Nowhere in any previous civilization is there any record of anyone having created such a design. Escher himself found that fact astounding, and so do I. He said of his new insights into the regular division of the plane, "I am head over heels in love with it, and I still don't know why."
I first saw "Sky and Water", one of Escher's best-known designs in 1969, when he was still alive, and I thought it the most remarkable artwork I had ever seen. I have never changed my mind about that. On the contrary, Escher's work continued to grow on me, and fired me with the ambition to create some tessellations of my own.
I have just got hold of a copy of a book I last saw many years ago, "ESCHER: The Complete Graphic Work" (J.L. Locher Ed., Thames and Hudson, 1992, reprinted 1995). Strangely, it is not true to title, since at least 2 tessellations I know of are absent: one of greyhound-like Dogs, and one of Sea-Horses which is one of my very favourites. Whether there are others missing I do not know, but in any case what is there is astounding. Escher's draftsmanship, his "ordinary" drawings, his impossible perspective drawings, all of these are amazing - in fact they put the "MAZE" into amazing! - but I could never come within cooee of his skills and insights with regard to these aspects of his work, nor would I try. For all their quirky brilliance, none of them gets to me the way his lifelike tessellations do. That is where my interest begins and continues. It is only in this area - and not even all of that - that I have dared to attempt to create designs that I hope Escher would himself salute.
I wrote this ambition in verse, years ago:
Once I saw sketch of Escher's - Sky and Water is its name -
It's Ducks and Fishes actually, but precious just the same -
Those beasties blew my brainbox! - I was never so impressed ! -
So then I tried to tessellate - Put Escher under pressure, Mate!
- Well, excel them, at any rate:
To better Escher's best!
Why in verse? you cry. Well, because:
I've often thought, verse uses words
As Escher uses fish and birds:
Every image, still, yet living,
Bound by meter unforgiving,
And every rhyme must suit each sound
Of every meaning it wraps around,
And every line must hold its place
Like Escher's creatures, locked in space . . .
I write a great deal of rhyming verse, perhaps partly as self-consolation for not having Escher's facility with drawing. In particular I try to write pithy verses about my tessellating designs.
Friday, January 9, 2009
Fanta-Pants, Mollydookers and Tessellomaniacs
How many nicknames are there for redheads . . ? . . Mostly I don't care a hoot, they're fun, Fanta-Pants, Ranga, Ginger, Blud-Nut, Blue, I don't care, though Carrot-Top is pretty wet, carrot tops are green. But one young RH woman told me recently a couple of her workmates had started calling her Med-Head, I reckon that's really pretty nasty, no other interpretation. It sounds really actionable to me, I reckon they better look out, especially since she had attitude worthy of her flaring curls, and she was both embarrassed and a bit laughingly resentful. Lighthearted insensitive ridicule or real hatred, it seems to me to be right over the top in terms of abuse, I resent it too, both on her and on all RH's behalf.
Similarly there are lots of names for Left-Handers. Kack-Handers, Mollydookers, South-Paws, isn't it funny how minorities get nicknamed and often treated with suspicion just for being in whatever little way distinguishable from the herd! Like Red-Heads, Left-Handers through the ages have often been persecuted as children of the Devil, the very word 'sinister' is Latin, originally meaning simply 'left', but just look at what it has come to mean through phobic
associations. I'm both redhaired and lefthanded, just as well for me I'm not living in the Middle Ages, I'd be barbecued quick smart eh.
Anyway MC Escher noted an interesting thing about Left-Handers: I remember reading that at one stage the Dutch burghers (if that's the word) named a group of (I think) 22 young local trompe l'oeil graphic artists whom they regarded as outstanding, and it turned out that (I think) 17 of them were left-handed. Escher himself was too, and he speculated that the extraordinary predominance of left-handers in that group was more than coincidental. He was quite fascinated, and said that he'd like to investigate the phenomenon further sometime. I don't think he ever did, but it does seem to me to offer a tantalizing avenue for research. As a result of reading this I asked Andrew Crompton, a noted English tessellator, if he was left-handed, and Yes he is. It may be for example that the brain-scrambling effects of being left-handed in a right-handed world tend to turn people from more ordinary forms of communication and towards pictorial ones . . . or is that drawing a long bow . . ? . .
Similarly there are lots of names for Left-Handers. Kack-Handers, Mollydookers, South-Paws, isn't it funny how minorities get nicknamed and often treated with suspicion just for being in whatever little way distinguishable from the herd! Like Red-Heads, Left-Handers through the ages have often been persecuted as children of the Devil, the very word 'sinister' is Latin, originally meaning simply 'left', but just look at what it has come to mean through phobic
associations. I'm both redhaired and lefthanded, just as well for me I'm not living in the Middle Ages, I'd be barbecued quick smart eh.
Anyway MC Escher noted an interesting thing about Left-Handers: I remember reading that at one stage the Dutch burghers (if that's the word) named a group of (I think) 22 young local trompe l'oeil graphic artists whom they regarded as outstanding, and it turned out that (I think) 17 of them were left-handed. Escher himself was too, and he speculated that the extraordinary predominance of left-handers in that group was more than coincidental. He was quite fascinated, and said that he'd like to investigate the phenomenon further sometime. I don't think he ever did, but it does seem to me to offer a tantalizing avenue for research. As a result of reading this I asked Andrew Crompton, a noted English tessellator, if he was left-handed, and Yes he is. It may be for example that the brain-scrambling effects of being left-handed in a right-handed world tend to turn people from more ordinary forms of communication and towards pictorial ones . . . or is that drawing a long bow . . ? . .
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