Gilles Deleuze investigated the concept of the Baroque in The Fold, Leibniz and the Baroque (1988). Leibniz is the philosopher of the Baroque---of the pleat, of curves and twisting surfaces, and the world of of things folded in draperies, tresses tesselated fabrics, domestic architecture that bends upper and lower levels etc etc.

Deleuze developed his approach to the Baroque from the concept of the fold whch is the expression of matter and produces form. In keeping with Leibniz's theory of the monad, that the whole universe is contained within each being, like the Baroque church, Deleuze argues that the process of folding constitutes the basic unit of existence.

Michael Cutaya says that Deleuze outlines six traits of the baroque, which account for the extreme specificity of the Baroque, and the possibility of stretching it outside of its historical limits of the Baroque to art in general, and the contribution of Leibnizianism to philosophy:

The first of these traits is the fold, which the baroque develops as an infinite process. The fold is the expression of matter and produces form. The second trait concerns the relationship between the inside and the outside: 'The infinite fold separates or moves between matter and soul, the façade and the closed room, the outside and the inside.'.... To the infinite receptivity of the facade responds the infinite spontaneity of the inner rooms of action. The third trait concerns the resolution of this tension across a divide in two levels: the high and the low. The facade-matter goes below and the soul-room above. The fold, moving between, differentiates into pleats of matter on the outside and folds in the soul inside: matter and manners. The fourth trait is the unfold, which is not the contrary of the fold, but the continuation of its act. The unfold is the manifestation of the action of the fold. The unfolding does not reveal a void but more folds: folds are always full. Textures constitute the fifth trait of the baroque: texture is constituted by the manner into which the matter is folded; it is the forces of resistance of the material. The sixth and last trait concerns the paradigm of the fold: the search for a model through the choice of material but also through its formal expression. The baroque fold can only appear 'with infinity, in what is incommensurable and in excess, when the variable curve supersedes the circle.'

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