Drawing Hands - M. C. Escher, 1948

Drawing Hands is a lithograph by the Dutch artist M. C. Escher which was first printed in January 1948. It shows a sheet of paper out of which rise, from the wrists which remain flat on the page, two hands, facing opposite and apparently in the act of drawing one another into existence, a paradox. The image is a kind of strange loop. Although Escher used paradoxes in his works often, this is one of the most obvious.

The litograph may signify mutual constitution - i.e. the principle of one entity being formed by the other and vice versa (e.g., the state vs. the demos, predator-prey co-evolution, the subject and objects, agency-structure etc.)