“Parisian Life”

 “Parisian Life”, also known as “Interior d’un Cafe” was painted in c 1892 by Juan Luna. The oil on
canvass painting, 22 inches long ~ and 31 inches in width
 Juan Luna y Novicio (October 23, 1857 – December 7, 1899) born in the town of Badoc, Ilocos
Norte. A Filipino painter, sculptor and a political activist of the Philippine Revolution during the
late 19th century.
 Parisian Life has a “playful” and “relaxed mood” that does not provide “the slightest hint of the
stormy happenings to come” in Luna’s personal life.
 It shows a young good-looking Caucasian woman wearing a pale lavender frock, her hat
decorated with flowers. With outstretched left hand, she uneasily sits solo on the canapé of a
coffeehouse in Paris, France. The table up front has a pulled chair. On the table is a half-filled
glass directly in front of her and another half-filled and empty glasses on the chair’s side. A
man’s coat, its checkered inside exposed, lays on the sofa. A folded newspaper is at her back.
 At the center of the delicately painted masterpiece is a young and pretty woman languidly
sitting on a sofa.
 It portrayed a scene inside a café in Paris with a woman identified as a courtesan or a prostitute
representing “fallen womanhood”, who was about to rise from a sofa overshadowing three men
placed at the far left corner of the painting.
 Three Asian-looking gentlemen wearing black coats with top hats huddle at the far left. The
middle man resembles the artist furtively looking at the lady while his two friends are said to be
fellow propagandists, Dr. Ariston Bautista Lin, face fully exposed, who was taking advanced
medicine studies then, and Dr. Jose Rizal, his back turned, who had released his controversial
books “Noli Me Tangere” and “El Filibusterismo.”
 The men in the background are actually three well known Filipinos: Juan Luna himself, Jose Rizal,
a very famous author and hero, and Ariston Bautista Lin, the first owner of the painting.
 The painting also captures three Filipino heroes in the advent of the revolution.
 Simply the interpretation contends the lady as our motherland.
 Another interesting detail is the darkness on the woman’s neck and the line going from her head
to the top of the picture. Her awkward posture suggests that she is being hanged. This
apparently shows that the Philippines was going through a time of struggle which could very
well be because they were being oppressed by the Spanish at that time.
 The woman was a courtesan(a prostitute, especially one with wealthy or upper-class clients)who
caught the eye of the three Filipinos. Albano Pilar points out in the Luna book that Paris suffered
a whore epidemic during that time and cafés were their pickup sites. Luna is on record to use
prostitutes as models for nude paintings.
 Albano-Pilar posited this biographical interpretation, that the mugs on the table and the coat on
the sofa show the absent user with the lady. As symbolisms, it may hint at Luna’s suspicion of
his wife’s extramarital affair.
 The Fine Arts students hypothesized that the lady is the mirror image of the Philippine
archipelago. This theorizing went to the ridiculous extent of assigning various parts of the lady’s
body as a representation of provinces or groups of provinces. Imagine her 12-inch waistline as
“the distance between Infanta, Quezon and San Antonio, Zambales” and “the site of the birth of
1898 Philippine Independence, Kawit Cavite, is exact on the lady’s womb, site of a woman’s
birthing.” With such engineering precision, the free-for-all goes to the extent of second-guessing
what the three gentlemen were discussing.
 In an attempt to shed light, the students scattered darkness by coming up with a Da Vinci Code-
style interpretation. Among other assumptions, it stated “that the woman has a dark neck, the
woman was placed with her head in a window joint resulting to having the effect of a sort of
‘antenna jutting out’ of the head. The dark neck and the window joint line showed that as if the
woman was being strangled, conveying the message that the Philippines was under stress.”
 This creative theory has turned out as the most popular through lectures on “The Parisian Life”
despite the lack of historical basis. As such, it must be taken as a pop interpretation. Under great
stress to justify the use of GSIS members’ money to pay for the painting’s exorbitant price, the
creative theory gives it historical importance to project that it was a necessary purchase to
conserve a national treasure.