It belongs to the group of his numerous layer and stripe paintings and was created in January 1929 after Klee's second trip to Egypt.

In addition to the format and the programmatic title, the technique is also unusual: oil on a plaster-primed canvas stretched onto a stretcher, which Klee only used in few cases until 1929 and not very often later.

It shows an immeasurable landscape, expressed with “the most sublime painting”, “which does not seem to have been conceived by a human being and not written down by a hand-held brush”.

In 1998, the composer Michael Denhoff wrote an almost three-hour piano quintet, which, in conscious reference to Klee, bears the title Hauptweg und Nebenwege - Aufzüge, Op.

The work was premiered in 2000 at the International Beethoven Festival in Bonn by the Auryn Quartet and Birgitta Wollenweber, in piano.