According the Stokes' WEB site: "The several modes of storytelling in this book relate to different layers of time. The snapshots of renaissance buildings evoke the distant past in the present while the people in the scenes and text portray the recent past in the present. The photo realism of the imposed objects that sit on the pages and breal them up as illusionistic windows, suggest the present or the present now past. " -- Source of annotation: Marvin or Ruth Sackner.