Stephanie asked:

I'm doing my dissertation on a comparison between art (particularly that of MC Escher) and
philosophy. However, I am struggling to find valuable resources. Do you know of any texts which you
feel would be important in this subject?

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Escher is one of the most popular choices of artist for the covers of philosophy books, but his
appearances between them are much less frequent. The principal exception is a book you must have
already seen: Douglas R. Hofstadter 1979 Godel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid(New York:
Basic Books/ London: Harvester). This is a vast and extraordinary book, and there's a lot of stuff in it
which is outside the scope of your dissertation, but it is well worth a careful browse.

You might also want to take a look at: Patrick Hughes and George Brecht 1975 Vicious Circles and
Infinity: An Anthology of Paradoxes(New York: Doubleday/ London: Jonathan Cape). There are more
philosophically rewarding treatments of the paradoxes of self-reference, but this one was compiled by
two artists, and should prove worth the effort it may take you to track it down (it's out of print). It
contains a lot of carefully chosen material that can be hard to find elsewhere, including a discussion
of visual and artistic paradox.

Michel Foucault's essay on Magritte, Michel Foucault 1983 This is not a pipe, translated by James
Harkness (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press). could be a helpful point of comparison, but
you would really have to read a lot more Foucault to appreciate it fully.

Finally, I did a search on Philosopher's Index for 'Escher'. The most plausible looking item retrieved
was: Jane Duran 1993 'Escher and Parmigianino: A Study in Paradox' British Journal of Aesthetics
33(3): 239-245.

Andrew Aberdein

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