From WILLIAM PATON
Benoit Mandelbrot’s article (‘Fractals – a geometry of nature’, 15 September)
reminded me of my first sight of one of his sets. It reminded me irresistably
of something, but I could not think what. Recently, the penny dropped. Aubrey
Beardsley. Beardsley’s illustration to Pope’s Rape of the Lock (1896) shows
his anticipation of self-similarity with scale change: a nice anticipation
of science and art.
William Paton Oxford
