I’ve been wanting to do a new version of my earlier post of The Twisted Stairs.  That’s partly because the way I placed the figures in the original posting, they got in a bit the way of seeing the twist in the lateral flights of stairs. I reckon you can see the twist effect better now, as they transform from stairs seen from below (at the top by the balcony), to stairs seen from above (down at floor level). I wanted to see if I could get it right, because this is an impossible stair effect that maestro M.C.Escher never used. Sometimes his staircases as a whole can be seen either as from above or from below, but they don’t twist from one viewpoint to the other half way up. As I mentioned in the earlier post, I reckon that’s because the twist effect depends on fudging the perspective, and Escher didn’t do fudge. His perspective is almost always miraculously lucid.

Another reason for a new version is that I wanted to produce a high resolution version, suitable for giant 35 x 23 inch posters. As ever, you are welcome to use downloads of the image here for any private purposes, but if you wanted to think about buying a framed print, or giant poster, here’s where to take a look.

There are more technical details on the original post. I borrowed the figures for this new version from Durer, Pieter Brueghel the elder, and Hogarth.