Anamorphic Distortion in Literature, Visual Art and Film

Anamorphic Distortion in Literature, Visual Art and Film explores four key types of anamorphic distortion in media across several centuries.

Every work of art that involves anamorphosis invites the viewer or reader to decrypt its distortional elements, resolve confusion and seek understanding, creating a balance between disruption and wholeness. To do this with the works examined—ranging from Hans Holbein’s The Ambassadors to Hamlet to Mulholland Drive— the book favours close, almost archaeological readings of works instead of analyses relying primarily on hegemonic academic theory, which often imposes external meanings and focuses on uncovering flaws or hidden ideologies. The author resists theory’s invasive tendency toward negativity and disconfirmation bias—interpreting texts based on preconceived assumptions, often ignoring what genuinely draws people to art and literature. While the search for ‘the secret perspective’ might seem similar to theoretical critique, this book is set apart by its method of emphasizing the discovery of anamorphic elements from within the work itself and by its selective use of theory. The goal is an open, nuanced, stereoscopic analysis of anamorphosis across time.

Anamorphic Distortion in Literature, Visual Art and Film is intended for scholars, students and general readers of art and the history of ideas in the humanities.