This tessellation may be interpreted as depicting the lines of reflection and fundamental domains of the (6,4,2) triangle group. Coxeter's figure depicts a tessellation of the hyperbolic plane by right triangles with angles of 30°, 45°, and 90° triangles with these angles are possible in hyperbolic geometry but not in Euclidean geometry. Coxeter, Escher wrote that he was inspired to make his Circle Limit series by a figure in Coxeter's article 'Crystal Inspiration The (6,4,2) triangular hyperbolic tiling that inspired EscherĮscher became interested in tessellations of the plane after a 1936 visit to the Alhambra in Granada, Spain, Īnd from the time of his 1937 artwork Metamorphosis I he had begun incorporating tessellated human and animal figures into his artworks. Dutch physicist and mathematician Bruno Ernst called it 'the best of the four'. It is one of a series of four woodcuts by Escher depicting ideas from hyperbolic geometry. Escher, in which 'strings of fish shoot up like rockets from infinitely far away' and then 'fall back again whence they came'.
Escher Circle Limit III, 1959Ĭircle Limit III is a woodcut made in 1959 by Dutch artist M.