Tessellation design ideas from around the world March 26th, 2006
I uploaded a number of image plates from Owen Jones’ 1853 classic work on design and ornamentation, “The Grammar of Ornament”. This is a favorite book of mine, which I have in a handy portable edition. The images I uploaded are all tessellation related, which I found to be interesting or inspirational.
You can find them here:
www.origamitessellations.com/photos/album/owen-jones-the-grammar-of-ornament/
Here’s a sample image:
There’s 45 images in all.
I also uploaded a good selection from a later work, Alexander Speltz’s 1906 book titled “Styles of Ornament”.
Here’s a sample from that collection:
22 images in total.
I’m still looking for a great book with nothing but tessellation designs from mosques, especially the mosque patterns from Shia mosques in the Syria/Iraq/Iran region. Until then, these old collections are quite helpful, and the price is right. If you find these interesting I’d highly suggest picking up a nice, large copy for yourself via Amazon.com or other online book seller- they are quite inexpensive.
-Eric
I neglected to add a link to my original source for these images! It was via the University of Wisconsin’s Decorative Arts Digital Collection, available here. Thanks, UWDC!
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Posted in art, design, flickr photos, geometry, math | Comments (3)


March 26th, 2006 at 9:41 pm
wow…
these are nice!
i really should learn how to make tesselations from an equalateral triange
then i can work on stuff like this!
March 27th, 2006 at 10:05 am
It’s a great place to start!
squares, triangles and hexagons are the only “regular” tessellations, which can be folded using a grid- but other shapes can be made within that framework.
There’s a lot of other things out there, of course, but working from the same base makes it much easier.
-Eric
December 2nd, 2007 at 2:32 pm
coolio
keep up with it