Il Re si nasconde tra le pagine di Calvino e dentro i disegni di Escher = The King hides in the pages of Calvin and in the Escher's drawings

Abstract

The King hides in the pages of Calvin and in the Escher's drawings. The paper takes into consideration the Twentieth Century western society. To understand its complexity, Niklas Luhmann uses the concept of second-order observation and describes society in terms of functionally differentiated systems. This socio-philosophical paradigm represents the "hidden King", or rather, the constitutional meta-card that identifies the principles and regulates the functioning of contemporary society. The thesis argued in the article is that this systemic approach also informs the art and literature of two exponents of that century, so far considered sui generis: the Italian writer Italo Calvino and the Dutch engraver Maurits Cornelis Escher. In short, Luhmann's theory of systems is proposed as interpretative key of figurative works and narrative texts; or, alternatively, it seems possible to illustrate the systems theory starting from the analysis of Calvino's text and from the reading of Escher's drawings.