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It is characteristic of Quattro Cento buildings to afford a heightened awareness of approximations and of distinctness, and therefore of contrasts in which an approximatory element lingers to stimulate the unifying power of fantasy. The reflections in the mirror do not only contrast with the face of the stone in terms of their mobility and light and shade. I would say that they belong to the architectural impression since they evince further the already existing parable of the stone. Such strong art collects surrounding phenomena within its own terms: the visual dogma becomes entirely satisfying. When objects of the senses compel in the percipient the profoundest emotions of the contemplative state, the soul is at peace. We then have the sense that what we are looking at has rolled up the long succession of the mind in spatial, instantaneous form: and that the relationship between the objects seen, exemplify a perfect harmony of inner and outer things.
Adrian Stokes was an English art and architecture critic, 1902 to 1972, whose most popular works, The Quattro Cento (1932), Stones of Rimini (1934), and Colour and Form (1937), were written between 1930 and 1937. During this exact time, he was in analysis with Melanie Klein, although the writings of this period do not make distinct reference to her or to Stokes's analysis with her. After World War II, with books such as Inside Out (1947), Smooth and Rough (1951), and The Invitation in