ABSTRACT
Stone and Water where man has recorded his feelings in stone. To the designed shape of some piece, almost everywhere usage has sometimes added an aesthetic meaning that corresponds to no conscious aesthetic aim. But it is in Italy and other Mediterranean countries that we take real courage from such evidence of solid or objectified feelings, quite apart from the fact that these are the countries of marble, of well-heads and fountains, of assignation or lounging beneath arcades and porticoes, of huge stone palaces and massive cornices where pigeons tramp their red feet. We are prepared to enjoy stone in the south. For, as we come to the southern light of the Mediterranean, we enter regions of coherence and of settled forms. The piecemeal of our lives now offers some mass, the many heads of discontent are less devious in their looks. When we stand in the piazzas of southern towns, it is as if a band had struck up; for when grouped at home about our native bandstand we have noticed the feeble public park to attain a certain definiteness. Similarly we are prepared in the southern light to admire the evidence of Italian living concreted and objectified in stone.
