GALLERIES

It's reading period again. And nobody in his right mind is going to charge over to a Newbury Street gallery with three papers, an oral report and five exams staring him in the face. But Harvard, in its benevolent wisdom, has organized enough that's interesting on this side of the River to hold us until June 4.

Hilles Library, always a favorite hangout, is showing works by Jeff Kristeller, Eric Allon and Dave Prinbow of the Radcliffe Pottery Studio. Their plates, dishes and bowls, with warm, earth-colored glazes exhibit a human creativity that has saved many a soul after 12 straight hours of Gladstone and the Irish Nation.

At the Fogg, a South House course is opening an exhibit of 17th century Dutch Allegorical Prints. Dutch allegories are interesting things--one of the forerunners of these artists was Hieronymous Bosch.

But the Law School has come up with the ultimate mind-destroyer with its exhibit in the library of the prints of M.C. Escher (through May 31). This is just not the time to have to deal with two-dimensional lizards becoming three-dimensional, or columns that turn from convex into concave, or water flowing up the side of a building, or fishes mutating into birds, or any of the other visual contradictions that his mad-genius mind came up with. Escher works best for sane people with clear, analytical minds. All others (and that includes most of us) confront him at our own risk.