It is hard to pinpoint the history of tessellations they have been around for so long. While we have seen these beautiful patterns, not much has been discovered with them until recently.
Many of us understand that
tessellations have a distinct pattern that fits together like a puzzle, but what you may not know is that there are more than one type of tessellation and the reason
behind why they do work and fit tegether so nicely.
Johannes Kepler did one of the first mathematical studies with tessellations in 1619. Thus the study of the mathematics of tessellations has only taken place for the last 400 years.
While M. C. Escher (1898-1972) wasn't the first to work with tessellations he is often known for his tremendous work with them. (Britton, 2000)
Escher wasn't much of a mathematician, in fact here is something he once said about himself. "I was an extremely poor pupil in arithmetic and algebra, and I still have great difficulty with the abstractions of figures and letters.
I was slightly better at solid geometry because it appealed to my imagination, but even in that subject I never excelled at school."(Pitici, 2012)
Even though he felt this way, he was still able to grasp certain geometry concepts that allowed his artistic ability to create tessellations. Escher understood the mathematics
enough(at least conceptually) to produce translation, vertex rotation, midpoint rotation/ reflection, and glide-reflection/ half turn tessellations. (Britton, 2000) I think it is interesting that he is know in the
mathematics community for his work with tessellations, but there wasn't a huge amount of in-depth understanding for him about the mathematics behind what he did.