Symmetry Comes of Age: The Role of Pattern in Culture

by Washburn, Dorothy K.

• ISBN13: 9780295983660
• ISBN10: 0295983663
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2004-06-01
• Publisher: Univ of Washington Pr

Summary

This is the companion volume to the authors' groundbreakingSymmetries of Culture, the classic reference for symmetry analysis of pattern for anthropologists, archaeologists, art historians, mathematicians, and designers. Central to symmetry analysis is the use of symmetry in the more precise sense of its geometrical isometries in contrast to its everyday meaning of balance. For this volume, Donald Crowe and Dorothy Washburn invited colleagues from several disciplines to apply the method of symmetry analysis to actual case studies from cultures around the world.The essays compiled here explore how cultural information is embedded in the symmetrical structure of pattern. From descriptions of patterns on objects as diverse as Nasca embroideries, Ica Valley ceramics, Quechua textiles, Yombe mats, and Zulu beadwork, as well as from Amazonian shamanic therapy, ceramic design among the Shipibo, and Turkish Yörük weaving, the contributors reveal how the symmetrical structures in the patterns describe aspects of each culture's fundamental principles for living in the world. This approach offers a profoundly fresh way to read the meaning in pattern by arguing that pattern communicates through the structural metaphors embedded in the symmetrical relationship of the pattern parts. The two volumes together offer readers a revolutionary new window into the communicative importance of design.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments	vii
Introduction: The Role of Pattern in Culture	ix
DOROTHY K. WASHBURN and DONALD W. CROWE
1. Introduction to the Plane Symmetries	3	(15)
DONALD W. CROWE
2. Periodic Ornamentation of the Fabric Plane: Lessons from Peruvian Fabrics	18	(47)
BRANKO GRÜNBAUM
3.Creating Symmetry on the Loom	65	(16)
CARRIE BREZINE
4. Symmetries on Mats Woven by Yombe Women from the Lower Congo: On the Interplay between Cultural Values and Mathematical-Technical Possibilities	81	(19)
PAUL GERDES
5. Continuity and Change in Zulu Beadwork Conventions: The Interaction of Color and Pattern	100	(33)
FRANK JOLLES
6. Motion Pictures: Symmetry as Animator, Classifier, and Syntax in the Nasca Embroideries of Peru	133	(44)
MARY FRAME
7. Tanka, Chongo, Kutij: Structure of the World through Cloth	177	(38)
E.M. FRANQUEMONT and C.R. FRANQUEMONT
8. Symmetry Analysis of Ica Valley Ceramics: Insights into Ica-Inca Interactions	215	(17)
DOROTHY K. WASHBURN
9. At Play in the Vields of Symmetry: Design Structure and Sharnanic Therapy in the Upper Amazon	232	(72)
PETER G. ROE
10. Cognitive Structures and Body Metaphors in the Aesthetic and Everyday Discourse of Turkish-Yörük Weavers	304	(43)
PATRICIA DAUGHERTY
Contributors	347	(2)
Index	349