We are back to the baroque. Not the sublime one of Rubens, Bernini, Velázquez. Nothing that elevates the spirit. Today, instead, by letting oneself be carried away one sinks. In the nonsense of young and cowardly politicians, for example, who emulate the hyperboles of Cervantes or Marino and, like the latter, have “the aim of wonder”. Showing up at court in exaggeratedly sumptuous clothes, strutting with an elegant gait, conversing with wit and flattering whoever is convenient, just to surprise, fascinate, be admired: in the 17th century. For this, now there are social media, temples of contemporary vanities and grudges. By frequenting them, one is shipwrecked in an endless series of portraits embellished by Photoshop, as in the past by the clemency of the painter. A non-place, where the words are the redundant and verbose ones of the panegyric, if addressed to those who are hoped to be able to bestow favors, or echo the arrogance of those of the Bravi, if directed to those who think differently.
Inhabiting it is a group of cowards who, protected by anonymity, boldly challenge their neighbors in single combat (verbal), boast far-fetched existences. Others, con men, make fun of the gullibility of the elderly and steal their hearts and purses like card sharks and soldiers of fortune. Still others lure children for their whims and remember the secret feasts of bored princes and cardinals, in search of further and sinful ways to pleasure. Aesthetic standards changed: the opulent flesh of Rembrandt’s women is replaced by the thread-like one that the surgeon frees from fat and from law of gravity. The former scenographic, the latter fake. Courtesans and influencers have in common a propensity for artifice. For them, fiction is not a lie.
We are in the 21st century, and it is as if the most irritating elements of the Baroque era are resurfacing everywhere. Pomposity, hubris, triumph of appearance, theatricality of manners and speech recall Spanish nobility during the Viceroyalty. People ready to insult and fight for a parking. They take offense, shout, become red in the face.
The thought goes to any His Excellent Lordship, with high feathers on his black hat, musketeer breeches and boots, ready to draw his sword because of a precedence not granted. The 17th century is an era of plagues, famines, religious wars that hide boundless lust for power and wealth. L’argent fait la guerre. They live constantly in uncertainty and fear. Of everything and everyone. Aristocrats, and great merchants who emulate their lifestyle, increasingly indebted because of the ostentation of a luxury whose costs they can no longer honor, fear, as much as the common people, the infector, poverty, those who profess a different faith and, even, their own. They hate the inquisitor, the Jew, the Muslim, the Calvinist. Even the scientist and the medic who, to cure the human being, kill animals, vivisect cadavers and defy God. At the stake those who practice an art that stinks too much of witchcraft and does not heal. Only novenas to the Madonna and the apothecary’s medicines – herbs – can, if anything, postpone the appointment with the afterlife.
In the year of our Lord 2025 they have other names: magistrate, Israeli, Palestinian, capitalist, researcher. The fire used against them, depending on the case, is that of the media scandal or the missile. May a little bit of Enlightenment assist us.
