Escher Style Tessellations

The delightful designs by M. C. Escher have captured peoples imagination the world
over.

These are examples of what we will call Escher Style Tessellations, patterns which can
be extended to the left, right, up and down to cover an entire wall.
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We can imagine covering a bathroom floor with this type of design where many copies of
a basic tile or tessellating piece are placed side by side to form a tiling.

Tessellating
Piece

Sometimes the basic tile must be rotated or flipped over in order to fit together with
existing pieces as in the following example. Notice in the design below that the basic tile
is sometimes upright and sometimes upside down and sometimes facing right and
sometimes facing left.

In this chapter we will describe ways we can make our own tessellating pieces. A
classification, called the Heesch Type, will be presented. The Heesch Type highlights both
the basic tile and how it was made and also reveals the symmetries of the design. Finally,
giving human or animal form to the abstract shapes is an opportunity for creativity and
play.

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Five Moves for Making Our Own Tessellating Pieces

We will begin by cutting out a cardboard square which is the beginning of our tessellating
piece. (See below for a discussion of more general shapes than a square which can be
used as a starting shape). There are five moves (translation T, two kinds of glide
reflection G and G and two kinds of rotation C and C4) which can be done to the square
so that the resulting shape is tessellating.
1. Move T (Translation):
For the first move, translation, cut out part of the square along one side as pictured
here. Then slide or translate the cutout part over to the opposite side and tape it
back on the square. This is Move T.

Can you see that if you had a supply of tiles like this then you could put them
together side by side like a puzzle? This move also works by cutting out part of
the top and translating it to the bottom (or vise versa).
2. Move G (Glide Reflection):
For this move again cut some shape out of one side of the cardboard square. Then
flip or reflect the cutout piece and slide it over and tape it to the opposite side of
the square. This is Move G.

Note: The flip used here must be over a line perpendicular to the side of the square
(not parallel to the side) the wrong flip usually results in a cutout piece that can
not be attached easily to the opposite side.
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A supply of these shapes could also be put together in an interlocking fashion but
note that the pieces must be flipped over in order to fit together.
3. Move C (Center point Rotation):
This move is a little different since it involves only one side. Begin by marking the
middle of one side of the cardboard square. Now cut out some shape from just
one of the halves of the side. For this move, this cutout is rotated about the center
point of the side and taped onto the other half of the side.

Perhaps it is not so easy to see how a supply of these pieces can be fit together. It
is possible. However, as you may suspect, the pieces must be rotated around in
order to interlock with each other. Examples are given below.
4. Move C4 (Corner Rotation):
Again we again begin by cutting out something from one side of the square. For
move C4 this cutout is rotated around a corner of the square and taped onto a
touching or adjacent side.

5. Move G (Glide Reflection, Adjacent sides):

This final move, like the last, involves a side and a touching or adjacent side. After
something is cut out of a side, a glide reflection carries the cutout to an adjacent
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side (along a diagonal glide reflection line going through the midpoints of the two
sides).

Perhaps an more natural way to visualize this move is by taking the cutout piece
and flipping it over (as in Move G) and then rotating the flipped piece about the
corner (as in move C4). This combined move makes Move G.
This completes our presentation of the five moves. To make things interesting we note
that two or more of the moves can be done on the same square piece of cardboard to get a
variety of tessellating pieces.

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Putting the Moves Together for a Tessellating Piece Heesch Types

Different combinations of the five moves are possible. For example, Move T could be
done on two opposite sides and Move G done on the other two sides. Another possibility
is Move T on two sides and Move C on each of the remaining two sides. In fact there are
9 possible ways to make a tessellating piece using these five moves. These possibilities are
diagrammed here.

The Nine Heesch Types

A simple classification code for Escher style tessellating tiles has been developed by the
German mathematician Heinrich Heesch. According to Heeschs scheme, a letter is
assigned to each side of the shape by noting how the side is related to other sides (or to
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itself). The code letter T is assigned to sides related to their opposites by translation. The
letter G (or G) means related to the opposite (or adjacent) side by glide reflection.
Finally, C means midpoint rotation and C4 means corner point rotation. The four letters
taken in order from the four sides form the code name for the particular Heesch Type.
Heesch types are given under each of the examples in the above diagram. Also note that
the starting point for the four letter code is unimportant so that Type TCTC could also be
called Type CTCT. In abbreviated form, here again are the nine Heesch Types.
TTTT
GGGG
C4 C4 C4 C4

TGTG (or GTGT)

GCGC (or CGCG)
GGGG

TCTC (or CTCT)

CCCC
GGCC (or CCGG)

Note: Since each move involves two opposite sides, two adjacent sides or just one side,
the possible combinations can be worked out. However, there are two logical
possibilities which do not, in fact, form tessellating shapes (namely, C4 C4CC and C4
C4GG) since a supply of either of these type of pieces cannot actually be put together.

Analyzing Tessellations
We illustrate on the following example how to analyze a tessellation to figure out its
Heesch type.

1. Begin by identifying the corners of the beginning or parent square (or, more generally,
the beginning quadrilateral). The corners will be the points where four copies of the
tessellating figure come together. For example, note in the figure where the birds
forehead and feet come together. These four corners are circled in the figure below.

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2. Using tracing paper, now trace around the shape. Using the traced shape, it is often
possible to recognize how a side is related to other side (by T, G, C or C4).
Further insight into how the tessellating piece was made is provided by noticing how each
of the figures is related to adjoining figures. Looking at side by side copies of the basic
figure, are they translated or are the flipped or rotated? Looking at above and below
copies of the basic figure can you see how they are related (translation, reflection or
rotation)?

Recognizability of the Shapes

You can see in them battles and human figures, strange facial features and
items of clothing, and an infinite number of other things whose forms you
can straighten out and improve.
Leonardo da Vinci
Leonardo da Vinci was describing what an artist sees when looking at cloud formations,
but the same opportunity for creativity is presented with a tessellating shape.
Escher used the term recognizability for his fascination with the creative possibilities for
giving human or animal form to the abstract shapes of tessellating pieces.

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Abstract

Recognizable

Cari Hollrah, a seventh grade student, saw many different faces in the same tessellating
piece for this Oklahoma State Grad Prize winning tessellation.

Stretching the imagination to find the many creatures who inhabit an abstract tessellating
piece is great fun! What Creatures Do You See Here?

Raunchy, cute, gross, cuddly! All describe the creatures a good imagination can find (see
final page of this chapter for examples).
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Parent Quadrilaterals (in addition to Squares)

We have described five moves which can be done to a square and which give tessellating
shapes. We say that the parent quadrilateral for these tessellating pieces is a square since
we begin with a square piece of cardboard. Actually, other parents besides squares are
possible. For example, we could start with a cardboard parallelogram and make a Type
TTTT tessellating piece in just the same way as with a square (cut out a part of a side and
translate over). In this section a summary of the possibilities for parent quadrilaterals for
the different Heesch types is given.
For each of the five moves, there is a natural condition which the parent quadrilateral must
satisfy.
Move
Move T
Move G
Move G
Move C
Move C4

Condition on Quadrilateral
Opposite sides parallel, same length
Opposite sides parallel, same length
Adjacent sides same length
No condition (works on any side)
90o angle between adjacent sides of same length

Putting these conditions together give the most general parent quadrilateral for each
Heesch type. For example, for type TGTG, move T requires that two opposite sides are
parallel and move G requires that the other two opposite sides are parallel. Thus we can
begin with a cardboard parallelogram (parent) and make a Type TGTG tessellation piece.
Notice that if a parent parallelogram works, then using a rectangle or square or rhombus
would also work since these shape are special cases of parallelograms.
The next table shows the most general parent quadrilateral for each Heesch type.
Type
TTTT
TCTC
TGTG
GCGC
GGGG
CCCC
C4C4C4C4
GGGG
GGCC

Most General Parent Quadrilateral

Parallelogram
Parallelogram
Parallelogram
Parallelogram
Rectangle
Any quadrilateral
Square
Kite
One pair of adjacent sides equal

It is remarkable that any quadrilateral can be the parent of a tessellating shape. As the
table indicates, if we start with any four sided shape and cut and tape a midpoint rotation
on each side (Move C), we get a tile piece that can cover the bathroom floor. Here is an
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example of such a floor (along with copies of the parent quadrilateral and tessellating
piece).

Parent Quadrilateral

Tessellating Piece

Symmetry of Escher Style Tessellations

Escher style tessellations often have overall symmetry. All such tessellations have
translational symmetry. (For all of these symmetries we consider that the pattern is
extended in all directions.) Notice that the first example below has rotational symmetry of
order 4 and the second one rotational symmetry of order 2 (the centers of rotation are
marked with circles). A piece of tracing paper can help to see these symmetries.

Type C4C4C4C4

Type TCTC

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This final example has glide reflectional symmetry (the glide line is shown).

Type TGTG
Do you notice that there is a simple and direct connection between the moves used in the
Heesch type and the types of symmetry present?

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Examples: Creative Interpretations of a Tessellating Piece

Incomplete: Examples needed.

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