4. Aesthetic and Non-Aesthetic

An aspect of tessellation concerning examples of representational tessellations is one of which I term as aesthetic and non-aesthetic, of which such a classification has a bearing of which tessellation are assessed as of a lesser or better quality, along with their potential application to counterchange, of which this aspect is discussed in greater detail below. Now, the above two terms are thus utilised to describe tessellations of motifs that remain in an upright orientation, of which I utilise Escher's periodic drawings for illustrative purposes. Now, where the motifs(s) all remain upright, as for example, No.17, of birds, this is thus defined as aesthetic, as this is a sensible orientation, and in contrast to this, any example with motifs that are both upright and upside down, which is a non-sensible orientation, as for example No.8, of horses, is thus non-aesthetic. As such, the above descriptions are thereby applied arbitrarily whatever the underlying tessellation system is, and therefore examples can and do occur whereby the motif itself is quite superb or alternatively very poor, and yet can still be described as aesthetic or non-aesthetic by the above criterion. Therefore, as well as permitting an assessment of the tessellation, an actual application of this pertains to counterchange, whereby the choice of the type of tessellation is critical. Now, to give an arbitrary example, of a lineal counterchange, of which I thus utilise the above examples of Escher's for illustrative purposes. For ease of argument, I thus here discuss counterchange matters in a broad sense, without any pretence to the actual process. Now, the birds of No.17 are ideal for this purpose, as upon a successful counterchange having been undertaken, the motifs have remained in a sensible orientation. In contrast, the horses of No.8, is less than ideal, as upon a successful counterchange the motif is now upright and upside down � an absurd situation, as why should this horse appear in such an unnatural orientation? To be pedantic, there are more subtleties involved here, as ideally, for such a lineal strip, two distinct motifs should be utilised, but the argument is kept here as simple as possible to show the general principal of the application.