he Baroque texture of the Stills, and their life is the theme of meditation in the next page devoted to a series of images, the Unveiling, Chilean Wine, Forgotten Things, Italian Project, which hold no doubt a common ground in terms of their compositional vision (which justifies this common discussion), but which are, each of them, a universe in itself that insists to be acknowledged.
What is at stake in all these images is apparently a display of thing(s)/res, which might make one think, at a hasty inspection, that they are pieces of technical virtuosity, a musical extravagant score, or a mere still-life. The author labels one of them specifically Still-Life. This image, which preserves entirely its figurality and spatial coherence, might be a humble tribute to the Old Masters, but the picture has no doubt its moments of unicity. There is the glorious fold hosting generously the things in their sonorous life, expressed in the reflections of the ceramic matter, the brazen drinking pot, and the coiling sea shells out of which life has just been extracted. But even so, how are things to be seen and ontologically thought of in Hagea’s universe? We might not be surprised to find out that they are not things all together, but are some kind of beings of different ontological extraction.
The Baroque trompe-l’oeil letter holders hold no doubt a lesson to come close to the Baroque vision of Victor Hagea. But his poetical vision transfigures completely the atomic cohesion of these new strata of geological matter in its constitution. He creates so many new detours and coils that almost transfigure the surface and its object-matter (objectile). Thus, the surface of tin foil in the Unveiling projects us straight into another world beyond world, whose geography is indeed metapictorial. The Unveiling is about striping out the horizon to let one’s vision rejoice in the windows opened up in the tin folds. Ancient famous portraits look at us, we recognize the Dutch masters. But what could be the strategy of our postmodern Master to play out the Old Masters? I feel that his secret joy, which nevertheless he conveys us, is fundamentally to play metapictorially. He wants us to enjoy the deceit and the satisfaction of discovering how it is possible, on the same physical surface of the painting, to juxtapose representation to presentation, the representation of the thing (the hand, the portraits) to the thing/res itself (the shielded fold). The immediate consequence of such witty game is to create and juxtapose incongruent modes of temporality and spatiality, which intersect each other and produce a meta-symphonic discourse, in which each thing has its distinct tonality and colour: # brass, yellow tin, white glass. The Master hand and its sublime instrument dominate from above in this uncanny composition, framed by the meta-space opened as a sacred window into the fold foil. Now as ever before, the human hand remains cet outil of excellent creation and civilisation. And it is perhaps at this point that we should read the hand emblematically, and interpret this image that inspite of its visual deception, remains above all a hand-made creation. In this digital era of virtual imagery of absolute deception, when we are able to produce gene technology and replicate even body, and any-thing else, Victor Hagea raises the ethical problem of human creativity, evoking its enduring origination, which is cheiropoietic (hand-made). He does it as a sacrosanct gesture in the Unveiling. The celebration of the hand-made creation, embodied in the after-life of his Still, puts in a new perspective the pathos of his entire creation, and makes him a postmodern humanist of high class and consciousness, placed in direct polemics with the power of the virtual imagery.
“Still Life with Chilean Wine,”
“Still Life with black pot”
“Still life with blue vase”
“Unveiling”
“Unveiling”
“The Remains Of The Day”
“Forgotten Things”
