Mathematics and Art

Mary Jane Sterling

OLLI – Winter, 2015
So – where’s the math?
Dürer’s Melancholia
The Flagellation of Christ by Piero della Francesca
Escher’s Ascending and Descending
Dali’s The Persistence of Memory
The Last Supper – Leonardo di Vinci
Parthenon
Wall paper
So – where’s the art?
Cubism
Galatea of the Spheres – Salvador Dali
Tile wall in Alhambra
Magic Squares
Magic Square: square array in which every row, column and diagonal add
up to the same number.

2 9 4

7 5 3

6 1 8
Magic squares were known to Chinese mathematicians as early as 650 BC and to Arab
mathematicians possibly as early as the seventh century AD. Chinese literature dating from as
early as 650 BC tells the legend of Lo Shu or "scroll of the river Lo". According to the legend,
there was at one time in ancient China a huge flood. While the great king Yu (禹) was trying to
channel the water out to sea, a turtle emerged from it with a curious figure / pattern on its
shell: a 3×3 grid in which circular dots of numbers were arranged, such that the sum of the
numbers in each row, column and diagonal was the same: 15, which is also the number of days
in each of the 24 cycles of the Chinese solar year. According to the legend, thereafter people
were able to use this pattern in a certain way to control the river and protect themselves from
floods.
Although the early history of magic squares in Persia is not known, it has been suggested that
they were known in pre-Islamic times. It is clear, however, that the study of magic squares was
common in medieval Islam in Persia, and it was thought to have begun after the introduction
of chess into the region.
In 1514 Albrecht Dürer immortalizes a 4×4 square in his famous engraving "Melancholia I".
The date of 1514 appears in the bottom row of the magic
square, as well as above Dürer's monogram at bottom
right.
Albrecht Dürer's copper plate engraving Melencolia I, 1514
Found at the Art Institute in Chicago
Sagrada Familia Church – note repeated numbers
Golden Ratio
A C

Which rectangle is most “appealing”?

A C

r = 4.39
B

r = 2.93
r = 1.62

r = 15.04

r = 1.28
Mathematics and art have a long historical relationship. The ancient
Egyptians and ancient Greeks knew about the golden ratio, regarded as
an aesthetically pleasing ratio. They incorporated it and other
mathematical relationships, such as the 3:4:5 triangle, into the design of
monuments including the Great Pyramid the Parthenon, the Colesseum.
The Golden Ratio
The Golden Ratio, roughly equal to 1.618, was first formally introduced
in text by Greek mathematician Pythagoras and later by Euclid in the
5th century BC. In the fourth century BC, Aristotle noted its aesthetic
properties. Aside from interesting mathematical properties, geometric
shapes derived from the golden ratio, such as the golden rectangle,
the golden triangle, and Kepler’s triangle, were believed to be
aesthetically pleasing. As such, many works of ancient art exhibit and
incorporate the golden ratio in their design. Various authors can
discern the presence of the golden ratio in Egyptian, Summerian and
Greek vases, Chinese pottery, Olmec sculptures, and Cretan and
Mycenaean products from as early as the late Bronze Age. The
prevalence of this special number in art and architecture even before
its formal discovery by Pythagoras is perhaps evidence of an instinctive
and primal human cognitive preference for the golden ratio.
Evidence of mathematical influences in art is present in the Great Pyramids, built
by Egyptian Pharaoh Khufu and completed in 2560 BC. Pyramidologists since the nineteenth
century have noted the presence of the golden ratio in the design of the ancient
monuments. They note that the length of the base edges range from 755–756 feet while the
height of the structure is 481.4 feet. Working out the math, the perpendicular bisector of
the side of the pyramid comes out to 612 feet. If we divide the slant height of the pyramid
by half its base length, we get a ratio of 1.619, less than 1% from the golden ratio. Debate
has broken out between prominent pyramidologists over whether the presence of the
golden ratio in the pyramids is due to design or chance. Of note, Rice contends that experts
of Egyptian architecture have argued that ancient Egyptian architects have long known
about the existence of the golden ratio. In addition, three other pyramidologists, contend
that: Herodotus related in one passage that the Egyptian priests told him that the
dimensions of the Great Pyramid were so chosen that the area of a square whose side was
the height of the great pyramid equaled the area of the triangle.
This passage, if true, would undeniably prove the intentional presence of the golden ratio in
the pyramids. However, the validity of this assertion is found to be questionable. Critics of
this golden ratio theory note that it is far more likely that the original Egyptian architects
modeled the pyramid after the 3-4-5 triangle, rather than the Kepler’s triangle. According to
the Rhind mathematical papyrus, an ancient papyrus that is the best example of Egyptian
math, the Egyptians certainly knew about and used the 3-4-5 triangle extensively in
mathematics and architecture. While the exact triangle the Egyptians chose to design their
pyramids after remains unclear, the fact that the dimensions of pyramids correspond so
strongly to a special right triangle suggest a strong mathematical influence in the last
standing ancient wonder.
A Kepler triangle is a right triangle with edge lengths in geometric progression. The ratio of the edges of a Kepler
triangle is linked to the golden ratio:

and can be written:

or approximately 1 : 1.272 : 1.618. The squares of the edges of this triangle (see figure) are in geometric progression according to the golden ratio.

Triangles with such ratios are named after the German mathematician and astronomer
Johannes Kepler (1571–1630), who first demonstrated that this triangle is characterized
by a ratio between short side and hypotenuse equal to the golden ratio.[ Kepler triangles
combine two key mathematical concepts—the Pythagorean theorem and the golden
ratio—that fascinated Kepler deeply, as he expressed in this quotation:
“Geometry has two great treasures: one is the theorem of Pythagoras, the other the
division of a line into mean and extreme ratio. The first we may compare to a mass of
gold, the second we may call a precious jewel.”

Some sources claim that a triangle with dimensions closely approximating a

Kepler triangle can be recognized in the Great Pyramid of Giza.
Parthenon
The Parthenon is a temple dedicated the Greek goddess Athena, built in the 5th century
BC on the Athenian Acropolis. It is contended that Phidian, the main Greek sculptor in
charge of decorating the Parthenon, also knew about the golden ratio and its aesthetic
properties. In fact, the Greek symbol for the Golden Ratio is named Phi (φ) because
of Phidias. The golden rectangle, a rectangle whose length to width ratio is the golden
ratio and considered the most pleasing to the eye, is almost omnipresent in the façade
and floor plans of the Parthenon. The entire façade may be enclosed within a golden
rectangle. The ratio of the length of a metope and triglyph to the height of the frieze, as
well as the height of the columns and stylobate to the entire height of the temple is also
the golden ratio. Phidias himself constructed many Parthenon statues that meticulously
embody the golden ratio. Phidias is also notable for his contributions to the Athena
Parthenos and the Statue of Zeus. As with the Pyramids however, more recent historians
challenge the purposeful inclusion of the golden ratio in Greek temples, such as the
Parthenon, contending that earlier studies have purposefully fitted in measurements of
the temple until it conformed to a golden rectangle.
In classical architecture, a metope is a rectangular architectural element that fills the space between
two triglyphs in a Doric frieze, which is a decorative band of alternating triglyphs and metopes above
the architrave of a building of the Doric order. Metopes often had painted or sculptural decoration; the
most famous example are the 92 metopes of the Parthenon marbles some of which depict the battle
between the Centaurs and the Lapiths. The painting on most metopes has been lost, but sufficient
traces remain to allow a close idea of their original appearance.

In terms of structure, metopes may be carved from a single block with a triglyph (or triglyphs), or they
may be cut separately and slide into slots in the triglyph blocks as at the Temple of Aphaea. Sometimes
the metopes and friezes were cut from different stone, so as to provide color contrast. Although they
tend to be close to square in shape, some metopes are noticeably larger in height or in width. They
may also vary in width within a single structure to allow for corner contraction, an adjustment of the
column spacing and arrangement of the Doric frieze in a temple to make the design appear more
harmonious.
The oldest mosque in North Africa is the Great Mosque of Kairouan (Tunisia), built by
Uqba ibn Nafi in 670 A.D. Boussora and Mazouz’s study of the mosque dimensions
reveals a very consistent application of the golden ratio in its design. Boussora and
Mazouz contend:

The geometric technique of construction of the golden section seems to

have determined the major decisions of the spatial organization. The
golden section appears repeatedly in some part of the building
measurements. It is found in the overall proportion of the plan and in
the dimensioning of the prayer space, the court and the minaret. The
existence of the golden section in some parts of Kairouan mosque
indicates that the elements designed and generated with this principle
may have been realised at the same period.
Because of urban constraints, the mosque floor plan is not a perfect
rectangle. Even so, for example, the division of the courtyard and prayer
hall is almost a perfect golden ratio.
Great Mosque of Kairouan
Notre Dame
Vitruvian Man by Di Vinci – golden ratio in body dimensions
Some scholars contend the influence of the mathematician Pythagoras on
the Canon of Polykleitos. The Canon applies the basic mathematical concepts of
Greek geometry, such as the ratio, proportion, and symmetria (Greek for
“harmonious proportions”) and turns it into a system capable of describing the
human form through a series of continuous geometric progressions. Polykleitos
starts with a specific human body part, the distal phalanges of the little finger,
or the tip of the little finger to the first joint, and establishes that as the basic
module or unit for determining all the other proportions of the human
body. From that, Polykleitos multiplies the length by radical 2 (1.14142) to get
the distance of the second phalanges and multiplies the length again by radical
2 to get the length of the third phalanges. Next, he takes the finger length and
multiplies it again by radical 2 to get the length of the palm from the base of
the finger to the ulna. This geometric series of measurements progress until
Polykleitos has formed the arm, chest, body, and so on. Other proportions are
less set. For example, the ideal body should be 8 heads high and 2 heads wide.
However, ordinary figures are 7½ heads tall while heroic figures are 8½ heads
tall.
Looking at the length of our fingers, each section — from the tip of the base to the wrist — is larger than the
preceding one by roughly the ratio of phi.
Polykleitos the Elder (c.450-420B.C.) was a Greek sculptor from the
school of Argos, and a contemporary of Phidian. His works and
statues consisted mainly of bronze and were of athletes. While his
sculptures may not be as famous as those of Phidias, he is better
known for his approach towards sculpture. In the Canon of
Polykleitos, a treatise he wrote designed to document the
“perfect” anatomical proportions of the male nude, Polykleitos gives
us a mathematical approach towards sculpturing the human body.
The influence of the Canon of Polykleitos is immense in classical
Greek, Roman and Renaissance sculpture, with many sculptors after
him following Polykleitos’ prescription. While none of Polykleitos’
original works survive, Roman copies of his works demonstrate and
embody his ideal of physical perfection and mathematical precision.
Golden Ratio
Graham Sutherland's tapestry of Christ The King behind the altar in Coventry Cathedral.
The Fibonacci sequence starts like this: 0, 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34, 55 and so
on forever. Each number is the sum of the two numbers that precede it. It's a
simple pattern, but it appears to be a kind of built-in numbering system to
the cosmos. Here are 15 astounding examples of phi in nature.
Leonardo Fibonacci came up with the sequence when calculating the ideal
expansion pairs of rabbits over the course of one year. Today, its emergent
patterns and ratios (phi = 1.61803...) can be seen from the microscale to the
macroscale, and right through to biological systems and inanimate objects.
The number of petals in a flower consistently follows the Fibonacci sequence. Famous examples
include the lily, which has three petals, buttercups, which have five (pictured at left), the chicory's
21, the daisy's 34, and so on. Phi appears in petals on account of the ideal packing arrangement as
selected by Darwinian processes; each petal is placed at 0.618034 per turn (out of a 360° circle)
allowing for the best possible exposure to sunlight and other factors.
Snail shells and nautilus shells follow
the logarithmic spiral, as does the
cochlea of the inner ear. It can also be
seen in the horns of certain goats,
and the shape of certain spider's
webs.
Hurricanes
Faces, both human and nonhuman, abound with
examples of the Golden Ratio. The mouth and nose are
each positioned at golden sections of the distance
between the eyes and the bottom of the chin. Similar
proportions can been seen from the side, and even the
eye and ear itself (which follows along a spiral).
It's worth noting that every person's body is different,
but that averages across populations tend towards phi.
It has also been said that the more closely our
proportions adhere to phi, the more "attractive" those
traits are perceived. As an example, the most
"beautiful" smiles are those in which central incisors
are 1.618 wider than the lateral incisors, which are
1.618 wider than canines, and so on. It's quite possible
that, from an evo-psych perspective, that we are
primed to like physical forms that adhere to the golden
ratio — a potential indicator of reproductive fitness and
health.
Constructing a golden rectangle
 H

EG = 8.56 cm
HG = 5.29 cm
EG
= 1.62
HG

E G

Show construction – change length of side of original square

 H

EG = 8.56 cm
HG = 5.29 cm
EG
= 1.62
HG

E F G

FG = 3.27 cm
HG
= 1.62
FG
 H

EG = 8.56 cm
HG = 5.29 cm
EG
= 1.62
HG

E F G

FG = 3.27 cm
HG
= 1.62
FG
 Donald in
Mathemagic
Land
Intro: 0 – 1:46
Golden Ratio: 7:00 – 13:30
Polyhedra/Platonic
Solids
Polyhedron:
Three-dimensional figure with flat surfaces, straight edges (where the
surfaces meet), and vertices/points (where the edges meet).
Regular polyhedron: dodecahedron
Five Platonic solids (all faces are regular polygons):

Tetrahedron: each of the four faces an equilateral triangle

Octahedron: each of the eight faces an equilateral triangle

Cube: each of the six faces a square

Dodecahedron: each of the twelve faces a regular pentagon

Icosahedron: each of the twenty faces an equilateral triangle

Only these five are possible.

A skeletal polyhedron drawn by Leonardo da Vinci to
illustrate a book by Luca Pacioli.
M.C. Escher’s Stars
Euler’s Rule: for any polyhedron,
V+F=E+2
The truncated rhombohedron with a faint human skull on it. This
shape is now known as Dürer’s solid; over the years, there have been
numerous articles disputing the precise shape of this polyhedron.
Albrecht Dürer
Albrecht Dürer(1471–1528) was a German Renaissance printmaker who
made important contributions to polyhedral literature in his
book, Underweysung der Messung (Education on Measurement) (1525),
meant to teach the subjects of linear perspective, geometry in architecture,
Platonic solids and regular polygons. Dürer was likely influenced by the works
of Luca Pacioli and Piero della Francesca during his trips to Italy. While the
examples of perspective in Underweysung der Messung are underdeveloped
and contain a number of inaccuracies, the manual does contain a very
interesting discussion of polyhedra. Dürer is also the first to introduce in text
the idea of polyhedral nets, polyhedra unfolded to lie flat for printing. Dürer
published another influential book on human proportions called Vier Bücher
von Menschlicher Proportion (Four Books on Human Proportion) in 1528.
Dürer's well-known engraving Melencolia I depicts a frustrated thinker sitting
by what is best interpreted as a “truncated rhomboid” or a “rhombohedron with
72-degree face angles, which has been truncated so it can be inscribed in a
sphere”.
Dalí's 1954 painting Crucifixion (Corpus Hypercubus) uses the net of a hypercube.
Polyhedral nets:
De Divina Proportione

Written by Luca Pacioli in Milan from 1496–98,

published in Venice in 1509, De Divina
Proportione was about mathematical and
artistic. Leonardo da Vinci drew illustrations of
regular solids in De divina proportione while he
lived with and took mathematics lessons from
Pacioli. Leonardo's drawings are probably the
first illustrations of skeletonic solids, which
allowed an easy distinction between front and
back. Skeletonic solids, such as the
rhombicuboctahedron, were one of the first
solids drawn to demonstrate perspective by
being overlaid on top of each other.
Additionally, the work also discusses the use of
perspective by painters such as Piero della
Francesco, Melozzo da Forli and Marco
Palmezzano.
Di Vinci
Graphic artist M.C. Escher (1898—1972) was known for his mathematically
inspired work. Escher’s interest In tessellations, polyhedrons,
shaping of space, and self-reference manifested itself in his work throughout his
career. In the Alhambra Sketch, Escher showed that art can be created with
polygons or regular shapes such as triangles, squares, and hexagons. Escher used
irregular polygons when tiling the plane and often used reflections, glide
reflections, and translations to obtain many more patterns. Additionally, Escher
arranged the shapes to simulate images of animals and other figures. His work
can be noted in Development 1 and Cycles.
Escher’s was especially interested in five specific types of polyhedron, which
appear many times in his work. "Regular polyhedrons" are defined as solids that
have exactly similar polygonal faces, and are also known as Platonic solids. These
tetrahedrons, cubes, octahedrons, dodecahedrons, and icosahedrons are
especially prominent in Order and Chaos and Four Regular Solids. Here these
stellated figures often reside within another figure which further distorts the
viewing angle and conformation of the polyhedrons and providing a multifaceted
perspective artwork.
Reptiles Dodecahedron
Tetrahedral Planetoid
Stars
Flatworms
Möbius symmetry, the topological phenomenon that yields a half-twisted strip with
two surfaces but only one side, has been a source of fascination since its discovery in
1858 by German mathematician August Möbius. As artist M.C. Escher so vividly
demonstrated in his “parade of ants,” it is possible to traverse the “inside” and
“outside” surfaces of a Möbius strip without crossing over an edge. For years,
scientists have been searching for an example of Möbius symmetry in natural
materials without any success. Now a team of scientists has discovered Möbius
symmetry in metamaterials – materials engineered from artificial “atoms” and
“molecules” with electromagnetic properties that arise from their structure rather
than their chemical composition.
Band of Moebius
Klein bottle – only “inside” or only “outside”?
Platonic solids in art
The Platonic solids and other polyhedral are a recurring theme in Western art.
Examples include:
A marble mosaic featuring the small stellated dodecahedron, attributed to
Paolo Uccello, in the floor of the San Marco Basilica (St. Mark’s Basilica) in
Venice.
Leonardo da Vinci’s outstanding diagrams of regular polyhedra drawn as
illustrations for Luca Pacioli's book The Divine Proportion.
A glass rhombicuboctahedron in Jacopo de Barbari's portrait of Pacioli, painted
in 1495. A truncated polyhedron (and various other mathematical objects)
which feature in Durer’s Melancholia I.
Salvador Dali’s painting The Last Supper in which Christ and his disciples are
pictured inside a giant dodecahedron.
A marble mosaic featuring the small stellated dodecahedron, attributed to Paolo
Uccello, in the floor of the San Marco Basilica (St. Mark’s Basilica) in Venice.
A glass rhombicuboctahedron in Jacopo de Barbari's portrait of Pacioli, painted in 1495.
The Sacrament of the Last Supper – Christ and his disciples are
pictured in a giant dodecahedron.
Polyhedra, tilings, and dissections

Drawing polyhedra was an early testing ground for ideas related to perspective
drawing. Renaissance artists were involved in trying to build on historical references to
"Archimedean polyhedra" which were transmitted via the writings of Pappus. What
constituted a complete set of convex polyhedra with the property that locally every
vertex looked like every other vertex and whose faces were regular polygons, perhaps
not all with the same number of sides? Perhaps surprisingly, no complete
reconstruction occurred until the work of Kepler (1571-1630), who found 13 such
solids, even though one can make a case for there being 14 such solids.

In more modern times polyhedra have inspired artists and mathematicians with an
interest in the arts. George Hart, whose background is in computer science, is an
example of a person who is contributing to the mathematical theory of polyhedra,
while at the same time he uses his skills as a sculptor and artist to create original
works inspired by polyhedral objects.
Hart
There is a long tradition of making precise models of polyhedra with
regularity properties. It is common at mathematics conferences for
geometers to feature a models room where mathematicians who
enjoy building models can display the beauties of geometry in a
physical form. They complement the beauty of such geometric
objects in the mind's eye. The beauty of polyhedral solids in the
hands of a skilled model maker results in what are, indeed, works of
art. Magnus Wenninger is the author of several books about model
making. His models are especially beautiful. Here is a small sample,
which only hints at the variety of models that Wenninger has made
over many years. His models of "stellated" polyhedra are
particularly striking.
Spherical spiral – MC Escher
Perspective
Two-point perspective
Perspective Drawing
 All vertical construction lines are parallel to one
another;
 All horizontal construction lines are parallel to one
another;
 Given the lack of a second and third vanishing point,
this perspective relies on orthogonal construction
lines;
 This style of perspective, although convincing, is not
always accurate.
Using linear perspective Francesca’s Flagellation of Christ
Flagellation of Christ – Piero della Francesca
Madonna and Child with Saints – Piero della Francesca
St. Jerome in His Study - Piero della Francesca
The Annunciation – Giotti Di Bondone
Leonardo's notes on linear perspective are apparently lost, but he made great use of perspective in his own paintings,
such as this study of the unfinished Adoration. Note the strict Albertian grid on the pavement.
Slide 15-26: The Annunciation c. 1472 Ufizzi (Cat. # 1074)

His Annunciation shows a carefully worked out perspective framework. Incised lines beneath the paint on this wood
panel show his construction. Note though that the Virgin's arm appears too long. Studies have shown that
Leonardo departed from the correct perspective here for the sake of a more expressive gesture, a common practice
in the Renaissance.
Annunciation Leonardo Di Vinci
Leonardo's most famous perspective painting, like all the other Last Suppers, this one is placed in a refectory
or dining hall, here in the Convent of Santa Maria delle Grazie, Milan. The vanishing point is placed at Christ's
right eye, where he dominates the foreground. Even Christ's arms reinforce the perspective, with his arms
along the lines of the visual pyramid.
Di Vinci’s Last Supper
Escher’s Ascending and Descending
Escher’s Relativity
A much more important issue is the realism with which artists can draw on a
flat piece of paper what they perceive when they look out at their 3-
dimensional world. If one looks at attempts at scene representation in
Egyptian and Mesopotamian art, one sees that phenomena that are
associated with the human vision system are not always respected. We are all
familiar with the fact that objects that are far away from us appear smaller
than they actually are and that lines which are parallel appear to converge in
the distance. These features, which are a standard part of the way that 3-
dimensional objects are now usually represented on a planar surface, were
not fully understood before the Renaissance. It is common to refer to artists
as using "perspective" (or "linear perspective") to increase the realism of their
representations. The issues and ideas involved in understanding perspective
are quite subtle and evolved over a long time.
The interaction between scholars and practitioners with regard to ideas about
perspective parallels the interactions between theory and application that goes
on in all the arenas where mathematical ideas are put to work. An artist may
want to solve a problem better than he or she did in the past and will not always
be concerned with the niceties of proving that the technique used always works
or has the properties that the artist wants. An analogy for a more modern
situation is that if the current system used to route email packets takes on
average 7.2 units of time and one discovers a way of doing the routing in 6.5
units of time on average, one may not worry that one can prove that the very
best system would do the job in 6.487 units of time.

Questions about perspective are very much in the spirit of mathematical

modeling questions, since in the usual approach one is concerned with the issue
of the perception of, say, a scene in 3-dimensional space on a flat canvas under
the assumption that the scene is being viewed by a "single point eye." Yet, we
all know that humans are endowed with binocular vision! We are attacking such
binocular vision questions today, because we have the mathematical tools to
take such questions on, while the artist/mathematicians of the past had to
content themselves with simpler approaches.
A variety of people whose names are known to mathematicians (but perhaps not to
the general public) have contributed to a theory of perspective. Though every
calculus student knows the name of Brook Taylor (1685-1731)
for his work on power series, how many mathematicians know that Taylor wrote on
the theory of linear perspective? On the other hand every art historian will recognize
the name of Piero della Francesca (c. 1412-1492), yet how many of these art
historians (or mathematicians) will be familiar with his contribution to mathematics?
Similarly, Girard Desargues (1591-1661) is a well known name to geometers for his
work on projective geometry (in plane projective geometry there are no parallel
lines), but few people involved with art are familiar with his work. The diagram
below (a portion of a "Desargues Configuration"), familiar to students of projective
geometry, can be thought of as a plane drawing of an "eye" point viewing triangles
which lie in different planes.
Of all the topics in the Tratatto, we are mainly interested in perspective. Leonardo had
said that "perspective is the rein and rudder of painting." Invented by Brunelleschi,
codified by Alberti and Piero, it was perfected by Leonardo.
Slide 15-25: The Adoration of the Magi, 1481 Reti p. 224
Terme’s Gargoyles
Tesselations
Tesselations in Nature
Tilings
Alhambra

A palace and fortress complex located in Granada, Andalusia,

Spain. It was originally constructed as a small fortress in 889 and
then largely ignored until its ruins were renovated and rebuilt in
the mid-11th century by the Moorish emir Mohammed ben Al-
Ahmar of the Emirate of Granada, who built its current palace and
walls. It was converted into a royal palace in 1333 by Yusuf I, Sultan
of Granada.

The Alhambra tiles are remarkable in that they contain nearly all, if
not all, of the seventeen mathematically possible wallpaper
groups. This is a unique accomplishment in world architecture.
M.C. Escher’s visit in 1922 and study of the Moorish use of of the
plane.
Maurits Cornelis Escher 17 June 1898 – 27 March 1972), usually referred to
as M. C. Escher, was a Dutch graphic artist. He is known for his
often mathematically inspired woodcuts, lithographs, and mezzotints. These
feature impossible constructions, explorations of infinity, architecture and
tessellations.

He was born in Leeuwarden, Friesland. In 1903, the family moved to

Arnhem, where he attended primary school and secondary school until
1918.
He was a sickly child, and was placed in a special school at the age of seven
and failed the second grade. Although he excelled at drawing, his grades
were generally poor. He also took carpentry and piano lessons until he was
thirteen years old. In 1919, Escher attended the Haarlem School of
Architecture and Decorative Arts in Haarlem. He briefly studied architecture,
but he failed a number of subjects (partly due to a persistent skin infection)
and switched to decorative arts.
M C Escher
M.C. Escher
Rotate 180 about midpoint of the third side.
Wall paper
 Egyptian Design Cloth - Tahiti

Ornamental painting Painted porcelain - China

A wallpaper group (or plane symmetry group or plane crystallographic group) is a mathematical
classification of a two-dimensional repetitive pattern, based on the symmetries in the pattern. Such
patterns occur frequently in architecture and decorative art. There are 17 possible distinct groups.
Wallpaper groups categorize patterns by their symmetries. Subtle differences may place similar patterns in different
groups, while patterns that are very different in style, color, scale or orientation may belong to the same group.
Consider the following examples:

Example C: Painted porcelain, China

Example A: Cloth, Tahiti Example B: Ornamental painting

Examples A and B have the same wallpaper group; it is called p4mm in the IUC notation and *442 in
the orbifold notation. Example C has a different wallpaper group, called p4mg or 4*2 . The fact
that A and B have the same wallpaper group means that they have the same symmetries, regardless
of details of the designs, whereas C has a different set of symmetries despite any superficial
similarities.
A proof that there were only 17 possible patterns was first carried out by Evgraf Fedorov
in 1891 and then derived independently by George Polya in 1924.

Why there are exactly seventeen groups. An orbifold can be viewed as

a polyhedron with face, edges, and vertices, which can be unfolded to form a
possibly infinite set of polygons which tile either the sphere, the plane or the
hyperbolic plane. When it tiles the plane it will give a wallpaper group and when it
tiles the sphere or hyperbolic plane it gives either a spherical symmetry group or
Hyperbolic symmetry group. The type of space the polygons tile can be found by
calculating the Euler characteristic, χ = V − E + F, where V is the number of corners
(vertices), E is the number of edges and F is the number of faces. If the Euler
characteristic is positive then the orbifold has an elliptic (spherical) structure; if it
is zero then it has a parabolic structure, i.e. a wallpaper group; and if it is negative
it will have a hyperbolic structure. When the full set of possible orbifolds is
enumerated it is found that only 17 have Euler characteristic 0.
When an orbifold replicates by symmetry to fill the plane, its features create a
structure of vertices, edges, and polygon faces, which must be consistent with the
Euler characteristic. Reversing the process, we can assign numbers to the features
of the orbifold, but fractions, rather than whole numbers. Because the orbifold
itself is a quotient of the full surface by the symmetry group, the orbifold Euler
characteristic is a quotient of the surface Euler characteristic by the order of the
symmetry group.
 The seventeen groups[edit]
Each of the groups in this section has two cell structure diagrams, which are to be interpreted as follows:

Rhombus a centre of rotation of order two (180°).

Equilateral triangle a centre of rotation of order three (120°).
Square a centre of rotation of order four (90°).
Regular hexagon a centre of rotation of order six (60°).
an axis of reflection.
an axis of glide reflection.

Crystallographic short
Here are all the names that and
differ in short full names
and full notation.
The remaining names are p1, p3, p3m1, p31m, p4, and p6.

Short p2 pm pg cm pmm pmg pgg cmm p4m p4g p6m

Full p211 p1m1 p1g1 c1m1 p2mm p2mg p2gg c2mm p4mm p4mg p6mm
Fractals
A fractal is a natural phenomenon or a mathematical set that exhibits a repeating
pattern that displays at every scale. If the replication is exactly the same at every
scale, it is called a self-similar pattern. An example of this is the Menger
Sponge. Fractals can also be nearly the same at different levels. Fractals also
includes the idea of a detailed pattern that repeats itself. Fractals are different
from other geometric figures because of the way in which they scale. Doubling
the edge lengths of a polygon multiplies its area by four, which is two (the ratio of
the new to the old side length) raised to the power of two (the dimension of the
space the polygon resides in). Likewise, if the radius of a sphere is doubled,
its volume scales by eight, which is two (the ratio of the new to the old radius) to
the power of three (the dimension that the sphere resides in). But if a fractal's
one-dimensional lengths are all doubled, the spatial content of the fractal scales
by a power of two that is not necessarily an integer. This power is called
the fractal dimension of the fractal, and it usually exceeds the fractal's topological
dimension.
 Crocuses
Fern
Fractals in nature
Fractals in art and architecture
Indian and Southeast Asian temples and monuments exhibit a fractal structure:
a tower surrounded by smaller towers, surrounded by still smaller towers.
Orient Station, Lisbon
Hindu Temple
Cubism
In Cubist artwork, objects are analyzed, broken up and reassembled in an
abstracted form—instead of depicting objects from one viewpoint, the
artist depicts the subject from a multitude of viewpoints to represent the
subject in a greater context
Cubism is an early-20th-century avant-garde art movement that revolutionized European painting and
sculpture, and inspired related movements in music, literature and architecture. Cubism has been considered
the most influential art movement of the 20th century.
The movement was pioneered by George Braque and Pablo Picasso, joined by Jean Metzinger, Albert Gleizes,
Robert Delaunay, Henri Le Fauconnier, Fernand Leger and Juan Gris. A primary influence that led to Cubism
was the representation of three-dimensional form in the late works of Paul Cezanne. A retrospective of
Cézanne's paintings had been held at the Salon d’Automne of 1904, current works were displayed at the 1905
and 1906 Salon d'Automne, followed by two commemorative retrospectives after his death in 1907. In Cubist
artwork, objects are analyzed, broken up and reassembled in an abstracted form—instead of depicting objects
from one viewpoint, the artist depicts the subject from a multitude of viewpoints to represent the subject in a
greater context.
Early Futurist paintings hold in common with Cubism the fusing of the past and the present, the representation
of different views of the subject pictured at the same time, also called multiple perspective, or simultaneity, while
Constructivism was influenced by Picasso's technique of constructing sculpture from separate elements. Other
common threads between these disparate movements include the faceting or simplification of geometric forms,
and the association of mechanization and modern life.
Gray Tree, 1911
Pablo Picasso, Seated Nude, 1910