Page 25 - VICTOR HAGEA : Amazing

Baroque Vision

Fold upon fold, fold after fold, the endless coiling of
the fold in the soul that goes on to infinity – this is

the characteristic of the Baroque. According to the

contemporary French philosopher, Gilles Deleuze,

the Baroque is a state of soul not just a historical
momentum per se. The Baroque endlessly creates –

like a melody – twists and turns, folds in the soul.

And in return, resonant like a sounding box, the soul

renders audible the inaudible, the movements from
far below, the coils of matter and the folds in the

soul.

If this is the Baroque, then Victor Hagea’s vision

with his folded universe is Baroque by excellence. It

is the very instantiation in the visible of that ineffable

flexion of ever turbulent motion in the soul. A world
consistently to be unveiled! There is always a veiled

body in the painting, a sky wrapped in a turbulent

curtain. There is something primordial about this

vast, overwhelming spectacular curtained universe:
the theatrum mundi of Hagea’s visions. I will try

to discover it in small steps and installments (the

body, the animate naked or costumed flesh, the

soul, the inanimate matter/the things/res), following
its natural un-folding. Therefore, perhaps, the most

appropriate mode of seeing of this vision seems to

be Deleuze’s folding-unfolding fold: “I am forever

unfolding between two folds, and if to perceive
means to unfold, then I am forever perceiving within

the folds.” (G. Deleuze, The Fold, 93) And of course,

everything must begin with the Thread – the thread Of Folds, Body, and Res

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