Fugue,
by Leonor Henríquez

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I stumbled by chance with this word (Fugue, from the Latin fuga/flee) but without the context of evasion.

Nor in the form of desertion or abandonment.

Rather, I mention it with a sense of rebellion.

Without attempting a philosophical dissertation, I believe that the history of humanity is a constant fugue.

There are many examples.

Astronomers like Copernicus and Galileo rebelled against the theories of their time.

Cartographers like Ptolemy and Mercator also escaped against the concepts of their times and revolutionized the way maps were made.

Painters and sculptors rebelled against the canons of traditional beauty, elevating the arts to infinite new dimensions.

It seems that escaping from rigid forms is a way of growing, and without these acts of extreme rebellion, the history of humanity would be downright boring.

As always, immersed in this reflection, I asked myself, what will be my way of escaping?

In my case, perhaps it is a kind of evasion, since I don’t believe I can stir up even the dust on the road. But certainly, I frequently escape to my own private planet, that of my solitude, that of my daydreams.

From there, I invent new constellations, I create maps without any destination, I draw imperfect perspectives; of course, without expecting to break any barriers of universal knowledge, or discover the fifth dimension.

But yes, I try to escape daily from mediocrity, from the indifference of the world, from “the voluble everyday existence,” as Luigi Pirandello (Nobel Prize winner for Literature, 1934), a precursor of the theater of the absurd, another revolutionary.

Anyway, my insubordinations are truly irrelevant, but the greats of history, whether in art, music, or science, have left us their trail of virtuosity, only to later flee to glory.

To conclude, I’ll flee these lines with a sublime example that I believe musically illustrates the point:

Tocatta and Fugue in D Minor, by Johann Sebastian Bach.