(director)
(studio)
PG (certificate)
95 (length)
01 December 2015 (released)
26 November 2015
Goya: Visions of Flesh and Blood is a feature length documentary film opening Season 3 of Exhibitions on screen and based on the exhibition Goya: The Portraits at the National Gallery.
The film perfectly embodies the relationship between the moving image and the art gallery. We are increasingly approaching an era in which Art is widely accessible digitally and the National Gallery could not have found a better way to homage its Goya exhibition.
Guided by lead curator Xavier Bray, Goya reconnects the audience to the essence of Art and painting. The documentary gives a well-rounded tour of the exhibition while enriching the experience through Art scholars’, artists’ and curators’ comments. The information provided also proves the richness of a work of art such as Goya’s. The multiple readings that could hide behind a portrait, the history and society’s manners.
What is even more fascinating about following the analysis and story of a painter is the peculiarity of the camera eye, always creating the illusion of the human eye and showcasing the beautiful details of Goya’s complex works.
One of the most interesting observations made in the film is that Goya saw the nakedness in the people he painted. He was able to read the bodies’ shapes and movements, something that is difficult to find in any other painter. He did not only focus on faces and expressions, but he found the harmony in the bodies themselves before dressing them.
The film is also a passionate journey in the role of the artist in the 1800. The artist’s relationship to royal families and nobility and also the changes artists had to undergo because of social and political events.
Goya’s personality also emerges as that of a rich and complex figure whose art was not only limited to his commissioners’ requests but which also had a personal eye for satire and a darker side to himself.
Goya: Visions of Flesh and Blood renews the magic and the mystery of Art, it makes it accessible to multiple audiences and it takes perfect advantage of the era of new media we live in.
