The Quattro Cento and Stones of Rimini

Book excerpt: This title was first published in 2002. Adrian Stokes was a British painter and writer whose books on art have been allowed to go out of print despite their impact on Modernist culture. This new edition of The Quattro Cento and The Stones of Rimini presents the original texts of 1932 and 1934 and furnishes them with introductions by David Carrier and Stephen Kite that will help readers grasp the structure and significance of what have become Stokes' most widely cited and influential books. Written as parts of an incomplete trilogy, The Quattro Cento and The Stones of Rimini mark a crossroad in the transition from late Victorian to Modernist conceptions of art, especially sculpture and architecture. Stokes continued, even expanded, John Ruskin's and Walter Pater's belief that art is essential to the individual's proper psychological development but wove their teaching into a new aesthetic shaped by his experience of psychoanalysis and recent innovations in literature, dance, and the visual arts. This volume will be of interest to those concerned with art criticism, aesthetics and psychoanalysis, as well as the art and architecture of the Renaissance and Modern periods. Supported by the Henry Moore Foundation in memory of David Sylvester.