Introduction To Tessellation

#1- What is a tessellation?
A tessellation is a pictures or tile, that mostly forms animals or other life forms, which cover the surface of a plane in a symmetrical way without overlapping or leaving gaps. Most of the time the gaps are just as interesting as the filled in spaces.

#2-Write a couple of paragraphs describing the life and work of M.C. Escher. Pick out important facts that describe who he is, how he worked, and why he is famous.

Escher is very famous because he is regarded as the 'Father' of modern tessellations.
During his life, he was very fascinated with filling the plane with pictures that did not overlap or leave spaces. He was born in Leeuwarden, Holland on June 17th, 1898. Escher was the youngest of four brothers. His father was a civil engineer. The family moved to Arnhem where he grew up and went to high school. During his highschool years he became fascinated with pen and ink drawings. In 1918, Escher enrolled in the School for Architecture and Decorative Arts. Escher quickly developed his art skills tremendously especially in woodcutting. When he left the architecture school he went to Spain and this is where he got his tiling patterns from. After he visited Spain he visited Italy where he met Jetta, his future wife. He married Jetta and they lived in Rome together where they started a family.
1925 was a very big year for him, he produced some of his first tessellation. It was a block print of lions. He block printed it on silk in gold and silver.Yet after this work which he thought was very good, he was disappointed when many people didn't seem to like it. Yet this did not stop him from designing them. He then started to draw tessellations, of camels, squirrels, and bird. Escher produced his most famous art with the help of his brother yet he kept coming back to his main obsession of plane filling. His ideas were vary important to many forms of art like wallpaper and mind boggling designs. He produced over 137 tesallations, most of which were of reptiles and animals.
Escher died in a home for old artists on 27th March, 1972. Escher improved and made improvements to the different ways one could create tesallations.