I wrote this as part of the teachers’ notes for The Very Hard Book I was asked to contribute to. I thought it’d be worth sharing them here as well:

The art for The Very Hard Book draws heavily on surrealism, a movement that dealt intensely with philosophical ideas, questions of perception, reality, paradox, memory and mental imagery.

The cover page is a direct reference to M.C Escher’s Waterfall. Its themes deal with illusion and paradox (the structure depicted is not physically possible) and infinity (the water runs seemingly in a never-ending cycle). More specifically, it depicts an imaginary perpetual-motion machine, which goes against the laws of physics (here we can discuss why perpetual motion isn’t possible – a great introduction to the laws of conservation of energy and entropy).

The title page (and the “read for the first time again” page near the end) feature an infinite staircase (also known as Penrose stairs), another element recurring in Escher’s works. Escher was also fond of integrated, repeating patterns, a nod to which can be seen in the ‘purple turtles’ illustration.

Throughout the book we can spot several repeating motifs that recur in the work of Rene Magritte: apples (e.g. The Son of Man), objects floating in the sky (a la Castle of the Pyrenees), and especially clouds  – appearing in the sky, or visually referencing a known form (a cloudog in the ‘Wag your Tail’ page, as in Le Temps Menaçant), forming walls (as in Magritte’s Personal Values), or denoting absences.

Magritte is also strongly referenced in the ‘Wake up now’ page – the illustration shows a window and a painting, but the similarity and continuity between them, as in several Magritte works such as La condition humaine makes us question the reality of both and the borders between us, creating a dreamlike state of epistemological uncertainty.

Another great master of surreal art, Salvador Dali, is also referenced here, though less clearly. The ‘make your hair stop growing’ illustration is reminiscent of some of Dali’s desert scenes, and the glossary page entry 14 starts with “The Persistence of Memory”, which is the name of the famous Dali painting. And of course, the painter in the ‘Make up a new Colour’ page sports a very Dali-esque moustache.

Overall, the art and its references serve to constitute a visual challenge to reality and reason and an embracing of paradox and dream, reinforcing the intent of the text.