What if Goya could have made art with AI?

BarcelonaFrancisco de Goya has been considered a precursor of cinema for the modernity of some of his compositions and for how he accentuated the human character of the characters in his paintings. Filmmaker Carlos Saura said that if Goya were alive today he would make films, and the Amatller Art Centre has gone further to show what new technologies can do with his paintings in the immersive exhibition Goya Universe. Between light and darknessAmong the findings is a surprising short film by Franc Aleu about The shootings of May 3rd. It would be very difficult and very expensive to make an entire film with AI, but Aleu reveals the undeniable cinematic potential of the events. "It is a great audiovisual collage," says Jordi Sellas, founder and director of Layers of Reality, the studio for production of augmented reality content that has produced the exhibition, where the studios Tururut and La cancan have also worked.

"Francisco de Goya was an artist who constantly experimented, and was very ambitious," say the curators of the exhibition, Artur Duart and Imma Fondevila. The tour includes eleven rooms with information panels and period objects, which address aspects of the painter's life and work, his social and political historical context and the transformation he experienced between his initial late Baroque and Neoclassical stage and the later one, marked by the Black paintings. Another of the highlights is Goya's mastery of engraving. That is why you can see around twenty of his engravings and the chalcographic press he used at the Quinta del Sordo.

Portraits in motion

The audiovisual works are the ones that attract the most attention along the route: the Tururut team has given life to a series of Goya portraits, including the best-known ones of the Duchess of Alba and the painter's self-portraits, and you can also see an audiovisual installation that recreates the system that Manuel Godoy used to exhibit The dressed maja and The naked maja, and hide The naked maja when he was forced to be discreet. On the other hand, this forced concealment of the painting is reminiscent of how the Inquisition put pressure on Goya, who got ahead thanks to his contacts.

Another installation made with AI allows you to sneak inside a Goya painting in progress. This time, the large immersive room has an even more dynamic character than previous exhibitions. The protagonists are the fourteen Black paintings that Goya made in the Quinta del Sordo. With movement, the characters of that dark Spain fit perfectly into a horror film. The virtual reality experience at the end of the tour once again emphasizes the journey that Goya made from gentle paintings such as The doll at Black paintings.