An Impossible Figure: Escher’s Waterfall (1961) Impossible figures are not illusions, but visual riddles that capitalize on our tendency to organize visual elements into a meaningful scene (Ramachandran & Rogers-Ramachandran, 2007). In most paintings, artists use depth and distance cues to create realistic scenes. But Dutch artist M. C. Escher (1898–1972) used perceptual principles to create complex visual puzzles. In Escher’s work, conflicting depth cues produce a perceptual paradox. As you try to integrate the conflicting perceptual cues into an integrated whole, you confront perceptual contradictions—such as the conclusion that water is running uphill. Escher was fascinated by the “psychological tension” created by such images (Schattschneider & others, 2005).