while it is a groovy into to recursion and other cool ideas, GEB annoys me in that I feel like the three figures in the title are ill matched. Godel proves a super important result in math, sure... Escher was a skilled draughtsman who had a feel for tesselation. An OK artist IMO but no special insights. Bach on the other hand was an expressive genius who in the volume, power and beauty of his productions just seemed to drop out the sky like a meteor. Escher does not belong in the same breath frankly. if Bach made a crab canon or did other marginally math-y things that is just not the point - the work lives or dies in entirely different terms...
Yeah. My brother was really into GEB but for the exact reason you laid out I never even gave it a chance because just from the title it really seems to trivialise the artistic achievements of Bach to have him be included in that list.
The only mathematical figure I feel you could reasonably compare to Bach would be Euler. I would read that book if someone wrote it.
the linking thread for all three is self-reference, either in the form of a fugue or in a painting showing its own creation. Doug is a loop guy
And Bach did indeed write variations on B-A-C-H[1]. But lots of composers have self-referencing cryptograms and other riddles in music. You would find far more in Scriabin, Bartok or Alban Berg for example.
It also doesn’t fit the narrative but the idea of self-reference in art didn’t start with Escher either. For example the Arnolfini wedding portrait by van Eyck[2]
[1] Bb A C B in modern notation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BACH_motif
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arnolfini_Portrait The artist can be seen in a reflection in the central mirror that he has ostentatiously signed his name above. It’s an incredible painting and worth a trip to the National Gallery to see if you’re ever in London.
A Strange Loop guy, to be precise.
(It's the title of his follow up work after GEB.)