Decades ago, on a working visit to Spain, I visited the Alhambra, the Moorish complex of palaces in Spain, mainly built in the 14th century near Granada. I recall feeling overwhelmed by the beauty of the tilework, by the colors and the seemingly infinite variety of interlocking patterns.
Author Henry Adams, in this article, puts it well: that the tilework “dazzles the eye in a hypnotic way that’s strangely blissful.” Equally dazzling, as Adams points out, is the mathematical reasoning that underlies the tile artists’ designs. The author poses an interesting question: Did Artists Lead The Way In Mathematics?
~ Betty Edwards
