Diagram of the apparent paradox and semiotic joke embodied in M. C. Escher's 1956 lithograph "Print Gallery", as discussed by Douglas Hofstadter in his 1980 book "Gödel, Escher, Bach". The painting depicts a seaside town containing an art gallery which seems to contain a painting of the seaside town, something being paradoxical about the levels of reality in the image. The artist himself is not seen; his reality and his relation to the lithograph are not paradoxical.