The Twilight „under the Sign of the Baroque”

In two of her works, Mateiu I. Caragiale – Initiation and Aestheticism (2005) and Under the Sign of the Baroque (2009), Dana Nicoleta Popescu has synthesized the thematic similarities between Mateiu’s Gallants of the Old Court and Lampedusa’s The Cheetah, investigating the baroque motifs throughout these works. Beyond the stream of motifs on which Dana Nicoleta Popescu makes subtle commentaries, a baroque of nature can be identified, represented by the twilight moment, bright and exuberant, but marked by an awareness of transience, of dimming light and death, specific to the baroque. The presence of the twilight is associated, in Mateiu’s creative space, with a veritable chromatic explosion, meant to convey the astounding colour palette of the sun through a series of ample, richly decorated images, in which an abundance of roses and crimson nuances is joined by an abundance of blood and fire. Splendidly coloured, but with a nostalgic tint, the twilight is converted in Mateiu Caragiale and Lampedusa into an expressive metaphor of the aristocratic twilight, awakening in the imagination of the reader the iconic image of a past filled with glamour and noble majesty.