Goya, The Secret of the Shadows

“He who attempts to clarify the reality of who Goya was is immediately immersed in the magical atmosphere of his legend. This Goyesque legend is one of the most curious events in contemporary thought and deserves a certain degree of attention. On the other hand if we don’t properly resolve the traditional image we maintain of Goya, one that in good measure we continue to maintain, his legendary ghost will appear at every bend, and despite all the arguments put forth in this paper regarding his person and work, will obstruct our path, blurring all perspective.” Excerpt from “Goya” by José Ortega y Gasset

The idea for this film began in the most casual, anodyne way: a day like any other, sitting around the table chatting, an acquaintance told me about some gentlemen in Barcelona that had acquired a hitherto unknown Goya.

He told me about the institutional reticence to accept an “infallible, unique, and independent” system to confirm whether the piece was a Goya or not. He told me about those hidden signs, those micro signatures that, according to his friends, with a little practice and predisposition, could be seen in all his work. A secret known by all, he said, but that the “keepers of the market” silence, fearing the loss of control over Goya’ s work and in due course, its economic yield.

What interested me about the case, was exactly that: the legend, the social phenomenon. Far and wide in my investigation I found people that were convinced they had “Goyas” in their house, all of them undiscovered, neither the market nor the museums willing to recognize them.

I knew that making a film about a person that finds a painting, buys it cheaply with the intention of selling it for millions would leave me unsatisfied. I would have soon lost interest. I didn’t think Goya should be reduced to that, to market shares in some rampant vision of capitalism. I wasn’t interested in another headline such as: “Modigliani auctioned off for millions” or “Picasso surpasses record in sales price” or “A Goya drawing sells for four million.”

Faced with the question of wether Goya dedicated himself exclusively, obsessively and automatically, to “micro-signing” his paintings begs the question of who Goya was, what he did, how he painted, what we know of him, and what we assume.

Goya, the Secret of the Shadows is, above all, a film about Goya. An approximation… a sketch… a way of getting closer to Goya through the backdoor, seeing the stage from the stagehand’s perspective…An atypical approach to the artist’s work, an attempt to provide varied perspectives on his cultural background, and if you will, a personal journey in search of Goya, a sui generis approach, a journey d’auteur, a contemporary vision of the art world and Goya’ s universe, his extraordinary legend.

David Mauas