Like Balcony and Three Spheres I, which he created a month later, this print is an early example of one of Escher’s main themes: the illusion of spatiality on a flat surface. He plays with the automatism with which our brains interpret an object — provided with shadows, shadings, fading lines and other perspectival tricks — as three-dimensional. In this case, these objects are two Greek columns. He enhances the three-dimensionality even more by situating them in a room with a floor, ceiling, rear and side walls. A space that is not there either, but that we visualise as such. He then carefully breaks down the illusion of three-dimensionality by ‘rolling up’ the columns, as if they are not made of solid natural stone but paper. The space they are in is too small, so he has to do this. In the case of the left column, this rolling up movement takes place from above, and in the case of the right column from below. The moment when it happens is marked by a fold. A fold whose visibility perfectly illustrates the difficulty our eyes have in properly interpreting this representation. Escher hides the ends of the paper under the left and above the right column. The two pillars thus hold each other captive, in an eternal balance.
Escher himself describes it like this *:
