Basic Information:

Title of the Work: The Parisian Life also known as Interior d’Un Café or "Inside a Café” even
titled in some books as "The Maid" and "Un Coquette"
Artist’s Name: Juan Luna
Medium and Technique: Oil in canvass Impressionist
Dimension or measurement: 57 cm × 79 cm (22 in × 31 in)
Date of work: prior to September 1892
Provenance: National Museum of Fine Arts
Semiotic Plane:
A lady is seated on a sofa in a café. She is wearing a fancy, pink and lavender frock, with a hat
decorated with flowers. She is leaning against the backrest of the sofa while her knees are close
together and feet apart from each other. She is drinking a tea in a glass cup. She is looking at her
right side, as if she was trying to get a peripheral view of the gentlemen looking on her right.
The three gentlemen are seated near to each other. One man is looking at the beautiful lady while
the other looks at him and the other man is looking behind the view. These men are wearing a
coat, tie and cap that looks like the clothing style of Spanish men.
The color of the lady’s dress is repeated on the flower vase positioned at the center of the living
subjects. There is also a newspaper behind her on top of the backrest of sofa, a half-empty beer
mug in the table in front of the woman and the coat on the sofa. The lights of pendant lamps are
reflected on the glass of windows.
Iconic Plane:
Parisian Life has a “playful” and “relaxed mood”. However, the woman’s expression shows that
she is disturbed by the gaze of the man seating on her right side. It is as if she wants to move
away from him without making it obvious or about to rise from the sofa overshadowing three
men placed at the far left corner of the painting. The man gazing at her looks so mesmerized by
her beauty and elegance.
Moreover, the clothing of the living subjects is contrasting to each other in which the lady has
lighter colors and the men have darker colors. A dark, tight necklace is also worn by the woman
that seems like it is a rope that entangles her neck.
The three men, whose clothing looks like that of an illustrado (Filipino educated class during the
Spanish colonial period), are busy discussing with each other whilst the one man gazing at the
lady is preoccupied by his thoughts about the lady.
Contextual Plane:
The woman is said to be a courtesan (a prostitute, especially one with wealthy or upper-class
clients) who caught the eye of the three Filipinos, namely Jose Rizal (back view), Juan Luna
(center) who is the painter himself, and Ariston Bautista-Lin, who is the first owner of the
painting. These three heroes in the painting played very vital roles in the Philippine revolution.
These men were all living in France at that time, which is the setting of the painting.
Personally, I find the woman to be the most interesting part of this painting. Her mirror image is
said to resemble the archipelago of the Philippines, her outstretched arm being the island of
Palawan. Also the mugs on the table and the coat on the sofa shows the absent user with the lady.
It may hint at Juan Luna’s suspicion of his wife’s extramarital affair.
Another interesting detail is the dark, tight necklace on the woman’s neck and the line going
from her head to the top of the picture. Her awkward posture may suggest that she is being
hanged. This 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.
Evaluative Plane:
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. He became one of the first recognized Philippine artists. Luna focuses in
Romanticism & Realism. His famous artwork was the “Spoliarium”. His excellence in painting
and drawing was influenced by his brother, Manuel Luna, who, according to Filipino patriot José
Rizal, was a better painter than Juan himself.
During the period when he painted the Parisian Life, that is a time when his style moved away
from having “dark colors of the academic palette” as seen in the Spolarium and became
“increasingly lighter in color and mood”. This painting portrayed a scene inside a café in Paris
with a woman, who is also said to be as a courtesan or a prostitute representing “fallen
womanhood”, is about to rise from a sofa beside the three men.
The way she was seated seems like the inverted islands of the country (with the arm representing
Palawan). That lady is representing our motherland, the Philippines. She was wearing pink and
white to symbolize the purity of the country, but her disturbed seating position pictures the abuse
from its colonizers. It’s black necklace, which people believed to be a rope pulling the woman
up. She was being hung, and for experts, it symbolized the lack of freedom of the country before.
The experts also believed that the woman was with someone (maybe a Spaniard) because of the
appearance of the mug and the cap in the painting. And her face being unhappy in her position at
that moment but trying not to make it obvious. The painted illustration captured the gathering of
three significant personas and heroes in Philippine History having a discussion about the
Philippines. Were Kawit, Cavite, the site of the birth of the 1898 Philippine lndependence is
exact on the lady’s womb, site of a birth.
The three gentlemen are dressed in European garbs,the top hats and the coats at the left of the
image are Luna himself, José Rizal, and Ariston Bautista Lin as they enjoy a moment in a
Parisian cafe, the three gentlemen have embraced the Western lifestyle while remaining
passionately Filipino at heart. In the larger context of history, Parisian Life is therefore
considered a significant work, capturing a last gathering of our great Filipinos on the eve of
historic events.