In the chapter entitled A New Harmony in The Fold, Deleuze asserts that the simplest form of the fold

in the Baroque is the one that can first be recognized in the folds of clothing. Apparently the folds in clothing are a motivating drive as to what is to the Baroque but I feel that it is a question of putting the horse behind the cart. It is my contention that Deleuze's fold conflates a variety of aspects or manifestations of the fold into a multiplicitous conception which are not fully coherent. The fold of the Baroque as an ontological notion emerges out of Renaissance optics and mathegraphies but the development in full of its implications would only be able to be expressed through the understanding of Desargues projective geometry as a generalized form of geometry. And to declare the presence of folds in the "real world" as a major prop within the Leibnizian philosophical project is to grandly overstate the importance of sartorial folds. The fold of Baroque art is the result of the aesthetization of advancements in optical technicity and not the result of whether they are found as water-themed visuals or as overblown, flowing, floral textile folds as a new expression of the body fabric. The new optical technologies brought to the table a new set of relations between the painter and his work. Instead of the tentative groping for the line of the subject of pencil and pen drawing, the new optical devices provided the artist with a new corporeal relation to the drawing; instead of it being a holding tentativeness, the new technology gave artists a new freedom of execution. The ability to paint "optically correct" on canvas the folds and the draping of clothing predates the Baroque by at least 150 years in Flanders and by more than 100 years in Italy1; by 1600, the ability to paint folds in a photo-realistic naturalistic manner is

And I am being very conservative with the dates. "By Caravaggio's time, mirrors and lenses have been around for at least 170 years" (Hockney 184)

old hat. And to exclusively fixate on the sartorial fold is disingenuous since the optical devices used in Baroque painting worked just as hard in the service of portraying optical effects in mirrors, armours and highly reflective surfaces. But it is this verisimilar virtuosity which presents its limitations within the desire to produce a unified, coherent image that the artist demonstrates his technical shortcomings. In wishing to produce a unified effect, artists would depict their subjects disjointedly: If the portrayal of sitting or standing subjects disproportionately foregrounded and emphasized the corporeality of the body enveloped in flowing folds of fabric to the detriment of the head and feet it is not necessarily the result of a concern for the fold as a metaphor conveying philosophical concerns or ontological conceptions, but because of the limitations of the optical devices and the distorted projections they would create. Rather than move the mirror relative to the subject and disturb the coherence of the projection which they would be unable to put back together again, they would settle for a distorted portrayal. This would allow them sheer expression of painterly virtuosity as the ability to attain "realistic", "true-to-life", "eye-pleasing", naturalistic effects: folds in fabric, fine damascene filigree of armour, a feel of spatial volume by the use of shades of colour.