Symmetry comes of age : the role of pattern in culture

Bibliographic Information

Symmetry comes of age : the role of pattern in culture

edited by Dorothy K. Washburn and Donald W. Crowe

University of Washington Press, c2004

  • cloth : alk. paper

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Includes bibliographical references and index

Description and Table of Contents

Description

This is the companion volume to the authors' groundbreaking Symmetries 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 Yoeruk 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 Introduction: The Role of Pattern in Culture by Dorothy K. Washburn and Donald W. Crowe 1. Introduction to the Plane Symmetries by Donald W. Crowe 2. Periodic Ornamentation of the Fabric Plane: Lessons from Peruvian Fabrics by Branko Grunbaum 3. Creating Symmetry on the Loom by Carrie Brezine 4. Symmetries on Mats Woven by Yombe Women from the Lower Congo: On the Interplay between Cultural Values and Mathematical-Technical Possibilities by Paulus Gerdes 5. Continuity and Change in Zulu Beadwork Conventions: The Interaction of Color and Pattern by Frank Jolles 6. Motion Pictures: Symmetry as Animator, Classifier, and Syntax in the Nasca Embroideries of Peru by Mary Frame 7. Tanka, Chongo, Kutij: Structure of the World through Cloth by E. M. Franquemont and C. R. Franquemont 8. Symmetry Analysis of Ica Valley Ceramics: Insights into Ica-Inca Interactions by Dorothy K. Washburn 9. At Play in the Fields of Symmetry: Design Structure and Shamanic Therapy in the Upper Amazon by Peter G. Roe 10. Cognitive Structures and Body Metaphors in the Aesthetic and Everyday Discourse of Turkish-Yoruk Weavers by Patricia Daugherty Contributors Index

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