Mural Mosaic in The Alhambra 1922

M.C. Escher made this mosaic in The Alhambra out of tessellated patterns—yellow stars, purple polygons, olive-green, well, something. You can see Escher sitting on the floor of the Alhambra, contemplating the abstract beauty of tessellated stars as he sketches this watercolour. It's all about the process of building up the surface, each careful repetition of line a sort of meditation. I feel a kinship here, because the making of a painting is a kind of inquiry, a way of thinking through form and space, one motif chasing another. The texture here isn't just about the paint, but about the repetition. That kind of intentional mark-making becomes something else. I find myself looking closely at the geometry to figure out what's going on. I like to think about how artists are in conversation across time. Escher clearly took inspiration from these patterns, and then he gives it back through his art.