Words instead of pictures: “The Prado Museum in Madrid, its guards and Goya.
Equipped with my IAA card, I enter the Prado Museum for free: 140 works by Goya await me there. It is forbidden to take pictures at the Prado: a real game of hide and seek between the surveillance agents and myself begins.
Very quickly, conscious of transgression, I abandon my mission of “stealing” these so desired images.
On three floors, I witness the development of Goya: a beginning full of finesse, transparencies, fine layers, depth, dreams, light, deep and cheerful landscapes. Portraits of saints, simple people, youth, aristocrats, sometimes remind us of the elder Velasquez.
We enter a world where everything is beautiful, simple and full of finesse. Colors are soft, light, pastel, fabrics are made of transparent layers, a “Spanish” green – a mixture of Naples yellow and Prussian blue – refreshes the atmosphere. Sometimes eyes look like marbles, black and empty. Is it their soul that Goya paints?
Later, caught up in the turmoil of his country and of his own life, Goya describes history in a large format. The violence of occupation and resistance is precisely depicted.
“Black paintings” show us the suffering of humanity, the world of nightmares. Black and white contrasts, thick textures of cruel and impenetrable darkness envelop us. Goya abandons color, he takes us into a dark world. The desert of humanity’s despair faces us.
Thanks to the attendants for forbidding me from taking photographs.
Thanks to them, deprived of photographs, I simply had words available to depict the incredible collection of works by Franciscus de Goya in the Prado.