Cycle, lithograph, 1938.

“At the top right, a cheerful boy emerges from his house. As he runs down the stairs, he loses his spatiality and ends up in a pattern of flat, gray, white and black peers. Counterclockwise upwards, these simplify into diamonds. The effect of depth is regained in the combination of three diamonds that are reminiscent of a cube. The cube connects to the house from which the boy emerges again. The floor of a terrace is covered with the same well-known pattern of diamond-shaped tiles. The view above is intended as a maximum of three-dimensional naturalness, while the periodic pattern from below shows a maximum of two-dimensional consistency.” ~ M.C. Escher, Grafiek en Tekeningen.