A Zen story tells that Mahakashyapa discovered in the flower that Buddha presented to two thousand of his disciples the smile of silence, and in the smile on his face the flower of understanding. This is considered the birth of Zen philosophy, of which Juan Hidalgo can be considered to have become a master, and whose spirit he transmitted to his works. Works charged with silence - by inheritance of his master Cage, who knew how to find in silence the value of what cannot be said, or cannot be articulated with words: reality itself - as much as with the smile of the wise man who knows the order of the world in its perfect imperfection.

It is not surprising, therefore, that flowers have occupied - and continue to do so, even after his physical death - such an important place throughout Hidalgo's career. Flowers of life, flowers of death (such as his baroque ones, abducted from the Catholic tradition of the pasos of Semana Santa) and, above all, flowers of the wisdom found in smiles, friendship, pleasure and sex. Juan Hidalgo's "rare flowers" are always that smile of Buddha at the discovery that in sex one finds - one can find, without a doubt, a true revelation. The artist made this clear when he spoke of the "Japanese Journey" (one of his actions, made with zaj) comparing the story of Bodhidharma, and his journey from India to Japan, with the journey that one body makes over another in sexual activity and in which, as in the artist's hand traveling through the bodies in man, woman and hand, the contact is, by itself, the path of reflection and knowledge.

That is why Juan's flowers are clearly linked to sex: from the mutual seduction proposed in the photographic series Hombre y flor(Man and Flower) to the surrealistic Mujer y flor(Woman and Flower), both from 1969. A year, by the way, marked from many points of view by utopian hopes - sexual, political - for which the flower could be, without a doubt, the best possible image. But undoubtedly, it is the Sad Baroque and Happy Baroque, also photographic actions carried out that year, that announce the perfect fusion between sex and floral nature. Works that provoke, inevitably, the smile of that silent wisdom. It seems no coincidence, therefore, that flowers have accompanied Juan throughout his life - from the time he composed his paper flowers as a child, to the memory they bring him of his mother in the beautiful tribute Rosa, Espejo y Condón (Rose, Mirror and Condom).

Now, when hope is once again emerging in our lives after Juan's physical disappearance marked almost the beginning of a dark period, the joy of his baroque reminds us that it is in the relationship between joy and sadness, between light and darkness, yin and yang, that the true path of wisdom is found. No one could doubt that, through those "flowers for Juan" that Carlos Astiárraga has been giving us since February 2018, the “rare poet” , without a doubt, was still smiling.

Julio Pérez Manzanares