The canon of Stoppard's work up to 1980 shares much with post-World War II art and literature in general and with contemporary British drama in particular. His works invite comparisons with the visual arts both because of his consideration of aesthetic questions through the eyes of painters (as in [Artist Descending A Staircase] or Travesties) or because of his extensive and often elaborate references to artists (as in After Magritte). His mutual concern with these artists is the nature, function, and responsibility of art. Underlying these perennial issues is a self-consciousness characteristic of contemporary art and literature. The most obvious examples of this self-consciousness are the painters of the post-war period who explore the specific limits and nature of their media. The works of Rothko, Pollock, Reinhardt, and others implicitly ask: What is a painting? Must it express or represent an object or an emotion? Must it have certain...