"I'm busy designing a new print showing a stair-case that goes on endlessly ascending - or descending, if you see it that way. This would normally have to be a spiraling thing in which the top would disappear into the clouds and the bottom into Hell. Not in my version .... Nevertheless, it's possible to draw it with correct perspective: each step higher (or lower) than last one. A large number of human figures walk on it in two directions. One procession climbs wearly up ad infinitum; the other descends endlessly ....
That staircase is a rather sad, pessimistic subject, as well as being very profound and absurd. ... Yes, yes, we climb up and up, we imagine are ascending; every step is about ten inches high, terribly tiring - and where does it all get us? Nowhere; we don't get a step farther or higher. And descending, running down with abandon, is not possible either.
People don't like to talk about falling; they'd much rather talk about ascending. Well then ... I'm working my fingers to the bone, believing I'm ascending. How absurd it all is. Sometimes it makes me feel quite sick." {M.C. Escher}
