The Parisian Life by Juan Luna
There’s more to the Parisian than what looks like just three men ogling at a lady.
The three men in the far side of the painting have been positively identified to be Ariston Bautista, Juan Luna himself in a small self-portrait, and Dr. Jose Rizal—all prominent figures in the 1896 Philippine Revolution. These were men from affluent households and educated abroad via the colonial system and by the colonizer. It was this sense of indenture that made Luna choose to render his desire for the country’s freedom though a painting that is European in style. On the surface, it simply looks as is three men wanted to “pick up” the lady, who looked disturbed and was awkwardly posed. However, recent studies have uncovered a web of symbols once it was found out that the lady’s silhouette is the exact mirror image of the Philippines, with the Palawan group of islands falling behind the skirt but echoing the downward slant of the lady’s arm. Then, it became clear that everything else in the painting was pointing towards the lady—the attention of two of the three men , the triangulation of the newspaper, the orientation of the table and chairs, and the brim of the top hat and the corner of a man’s overcoat lying beside the lady. Luna was actually drawing attention to the lady—the motherland—and was quietly asserting the need to acknowledge that its relationship with Spain—its lover, its colonizer—had a degree of abuse and malicious intent, as suggested by the half-drunk mug of beer on the lady’s side of the table and the still-full mug on the lover’s side of the table. Even the newspaper behind the lady’s head, with its name translated into The Cry of Bastille, the French Revolution of a century before, points toward the planning of the Philippines Revolution. All of these symbols were hidden in a painted scence of a seemingly quiet hour in a café in Paris.
