Page 10 - VICTOR HAGEA : Amazing

PROTAGONISTS

Victor Hagea’s painting is the proscenium of a strange

theatre stage with costumed bodies, decorum, and the
usual dramatic props. This is a masked show, a magic

tableau vivant set up as a theatre of enchantment,

whose director might be the artist himself, disguised

(albeit unmasked). As a sumiller de cortina (the one
invested to lift up the curtain), just like Nieto in Las

Meninas, he directs the play back stage, represented

in the background of the painting. There are however

few other unmasked protagonists in the picture, like
for example the nude. It is not clear whether she is

involved in the performance, or is just mixing up

in this dreamy stage space, but one of the masked

protagonists seems to unveil/reveal theatrically her
naked body. There is also the romantic couple in the

foreground, which seems to be surprised at the point

of withdrawal from the stage, perhaps for another

play. As we shall see later, their “exit” seems to be a
Romance.

The fact is that with his Protagonists Hagea reminds
us something very important that we tend to forget

all the time. This has something to do with the

human condition. Victor Hagea takes us again into a

deep ontological theme, which could be traced back
to Plato. According to Plato, man has been originally

constructed as a toy (paignion) for God, possibly as a

Hagea’s Magic Theatre plaything (hos paignion) or possibly with some more

serious purpose. This is “the finest thing about him”

-The World as Stage (Plato, Law I 644 d-e).Therefore man must fall in
with his role and make play as perfect as possible.

10 One should not waste life on trifles, but make play as