Skew Squares

Skew Squares is a product of a program called TESS which creates huge domains of surface pattern designs by applying rules defining eighteen schemes, or classes, of designs to create a base pattern, then replicating that pattern to fill the computer screen. The parameters for this particular pattern are now lost in antiquity, since the file from which it was printed has been erased, and TESS was deliberately designed to sample a different part of its pattern domain each time it runs. The pattern was probably based on either a scheme called “Stripes” or one called “Circ/Sq”, producing an off-center square, then subjected to a transformation that reproduced the base square into 2 × 2 array while rotating it.