AtD translation: Kit gazed at, or perhaps into, the tie’s ultra-modern design

[Mike Jing]

P623.35-624.6   . . . and a vivid necktie in fuchsia, heliotrope, and duck
green, a gift from one of the patients, as the Doc presently explained in a
voice hoarse from too much cigarette-smoking, “Hand-painted, as therapy, to
express, though regrettably not control, certain recurring impulses of a
homicidal nature.”
       Kit gazed at, or perhaps into, the tie’s ultra-modern design, in
which its disturbed artist had failed to include much of anything
encountered in the natural world—yet, who knew? maybe if you studied it
long enough, familiar shapes might begin to emerge, some in fact what you
might call, what was the word, entertaining—

What exactly is the distinction between "gaze at" and "gaze into" here?