M.C. Escher's Relativity from 1953, and a virtual recreation for you to explore

At right is a famous image from 1953 titled Relativity by M.C. Escher, whose full name was Maurits Cornelis Escher (1898-1972). Escher was a Dutch graphic artist who is best known for his art which depicted spatial illusions, impossible buildings, and repeating geometric patterns. In this picture, everything seems normal, yet upon closer examination, it's an impossible situation. There are conflicting points of view, and what appears to be three different gravitational directions. Looking at it straight on, you see the person at the bottom center climbing the stairs. But if you rotate the image clockwise or counter-clockwise, there are characters who would also be "upright" in those directions as well, so it would be impossible for this scenario to actually exist.

It's a fun picture to study and examine, but then we've found something that's also really cool - an artist from Barcelona (Spain), named Nico Roig, has created a 3-D interactive version of this image. Click on the item below and move your mouse around, and you can "explore" this impossible dimension!