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| Crescenzio Onofri Destruction of Niobe's Children before 1698 oil on canvas Dulwich Picture Gallery, London |
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| David Teniers Seven Corporal Works of Mercy ca. 1690 oil on panel Dulwich Picture Gallery, London |
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| David Klöcker Ehrenstrahl Family of Charles XI with relatives from the duchy Holstein-Gottorp 1691 oil on canvas Royal Armoury, Stockholm |
"If there is an inherently Baroque costume, it is broad, in distending waves, billowing and flowing, surrounding the body with its independent folds, ever-multiplying, never betraying those of the body beneath: a system like rhingrave-canons – ample breeches bedecked with ribbons – but also vested doublets, flowing cloaks, enormous flaps, overflowing shirts, everything that forms the great Baroque contribution to clothing of the seventeenth century."
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| Alessandro Rosi Allegory of Virtue before 1697 oil on canvas Museum of Fine Arts, Houston |
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| Anonymous Dutch Painter Portrait of a Woman ca. 1690-95 oil on canvas Dulwich Picture Gallery, London |
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| Sebastiano Conca Allegorical ceiling panels ca. 1695-1705 oil on canvas Museum of Fine Arts, Houston |
"Yet the Baroque is not only projected in its own style of dress. It radiates everywhere, at all times, in the thousand folds of garments that tend to become one with their respective wearers, to exceed their attitudes, to overcome their bodily contradictions, and to make their heads look like those of swimmers bobbing in the waves. We find it in painting, where the autonomy conquered through the folds of clothing that invade the entire surface becomes a simple but sure sign of rupture with Renaissance space . . . "
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| Paolo de Matteis Allegory of Knowledge and the Arts in Naples ca. 1699 oil on canvas Museum of Fine Arts, Houston |
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| Giuseppe Maria Crespi Sacrifice of Isaac 1690s oil on canvas National Gallery, Oslo |
"This liberation of folds that are no longer merely reproducing the finite body is easily explained: a go-between – or go-betweens – are placed between clothing and the body. These are the Elements. We need not recall that water and its rivers, air and its clouds, earth and its caverns, and light and its fires are themselves infinite folds, as El Greco's painting demonstrates. We have only to consider the manner by which the elements are now going to mediate, distend, and broaden the relation of clothing to the body. . . . In every instance folds of clothing acquire an autonomy and a fullness that are not simply decorative effects. They convey the intensity of a spiritual force exerted on the body, either to turn it upside down or to stand or raise it up over and again, but in every event to turn it inside out and to mold its inner surfaces."
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| David Richter the Younger Portrait of Abraham Brahe 1696 oil on canvas Skokloster Castle, Sweden |
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| Giuseppe Passeri Triumph of Semiramis before 1698 drawing British Museum |
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| Giuseppe Passeri Aurora in her Chariot before 1698 drawing British Museum |
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| Francesco Stringa Allegorical still-life with Bernini's bust of Francesco I d'Este, Duke of Modena ca. 1690 oil on canvas Minneapolis Institute of Art |
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| Edward Collier Letter-rack ca. 1698 oil on canvas Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide |
"The usual formula for Baroque still life is: drapery, producing folds of air or heavy clouds; a tablecloth, with maritime or fluvial folds; jewelry that burns with folds of fire; vegetables, mushrooms, or sugared fruits caught in their earthly folds. The painting is so packed with folds that there results a sort of schizophrenic "stuffing." They could not be unraveled without going to infinity and thus extracting its spiritual lesson. . . . The law of extremum of matter entails a maximum of matter for a minimum of extension. Thus, matter tends to flow out of the frame, as it often does in trompe l'oeil compositions, where it extends forward horizontally. Clearly some elements, such as air and fire, tend to move upward, but matter generally always tends to unfold its pleats at great length, in extension."
– quoted passages are from The Fold: Leibniz and the Baroque by Gilles Deleuze, originally published in 1988, translated by Tom Conley and published in 1993 by University of Minnesota Press
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| Nicolaes Piemont Cloudy sky with birds (ceiling painting for a doll's house) ca. 1690-1709 oil on canvas Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam |