I : 1
From a sandblasted glass picture of 1931, Steps. Shown in the first folder because the two contrasting constructions within one painting demonstrate a shifting away from an “only-one-way” of reading visual form to a “multiple” reading of the same image.

Presented are two stairlike figures, a large one at right, a small one at upper left. They consist of three, or two and a half, steps built of vertical and horizontal planes which appear translucent or transparent.

The large figure, normally, is seen first and read upward, because its lower step is largest. It also overlaps both the connected horizontal plane (seen from underneath) and the front of the second step, which is equally related to the following, the third step. Therefore, the upward reading of the large figure repeats three times a moving up, followed by a backward down.

In contrast, the movement of the small figure is very ambiguous:

(a) Receding — as in large figure: up-back, up-back, up. For an easy visualization, follow zig-zag edge at left.
(b) Advancing — the opposite of (a): up-forward, up-forward, up. See zig-zag edge at right.
(c) First alternation of (a) and (b): only second step receding.
(d) Second alternation of (b) and (a): only second step advancing. Discovering, then, that here the upper vertical plane is the widest invites to read the figure downward, which reverses (a), (b), (c), (d) to four different readings: (e), (f), (g), (h).

Therefore, the small figure offers eight readings in all.
(From Despite Straight Lines, 1961.)

We repeat the underlying design of the original Steps and change only the color, from a white and dark gray and black, to a juxtaposition of a higher blue as the ground at the left side and to a middle blue as the ground at the right.

Since the white is actually bluish, each side therefore consists of three blues, although both sides together comprise four blues.