The GSIS’ much talked-about ‘Parisian Life’ of Juan Luna

The title, "Parisian Life," for the much talked-about Luna painting acquired by the GSIS, is rather too vague or ambiguous for our current understanding. Anything that happens on earth – or in outer space, for that matter – that can also happen in Paris, like brushing one’s teeth, is subsumed under such a prosaic title. However, it was the original owner, Dr. Aristón Bautista, who gave the painting that name, and he was simply and rightfully referring to that part of his life spent in that city. At that time, he had just completed his medical studies in the Universidad Central de Madrid and was making the rounds of hospitals in Europe, perhaps in search of work. The title became official when the painting was exhibited at the Universal Exposition held in St. Louis, Missouri, USA in 1904 and, as such, it was listed and proclaimed in the catalogue exclusively devoted to the Philippine exhibits as one of 21 other paintings that won silver medal in the exhibition.

The title, "Parisian Life," therefore, was not just part of the hype to give the painting international appeal while it was on sale in the Christie’s auction of artworks in Hong Kong on Oct. 27 last year. Those who suspected so were abiding by another title, "Interior de un café," the caption for the black-and-white, almost full-spread reproduction of the same painting on pages 146 and 147 of my book, Juan Luna The Filipino As Painter, published by the Eugenio López Foundation. At the time the book was published, 1980, only a few collectors wanted to cooperate with the project. Either they did not want to be identified as sympathizers of the Lópezes for political reasons or simply as owners of precious artworks for security reasons.

Fortunately, the late Mr. Luis Ma. Araneta, architect and scholarly art collector, had every available Luna painting documented for his own study purposes as early as the 1950s. Thus it was from this scholar’s black-and-white photographs where most of the illustrations of the aforesaid book came. From Mr. Araneta’s notes also came the title, "Interior de un café." Providentially included in his documentation were the pieces in the Grace Luna de San Pedro collection. Juan Luna’s American daughter-in-law, the aforementioned Grace, brought this collection with her to New York City as early as the 1960s. The majority of this cache would later on be rediscovered in that city, bought and donated to the National Museum by the Far East Bank in 1990.

By itself, as a product of the period when it was painted or simply as an artwork executed by the Philippines’ doubtlessly greatest artist, "Parisian Life" abounds with merit. One has to go and look at the actual painting to appreciate its colors, its exciting composition, and the story it is evidently telling. At the moment it is in need of expert cleaning so that the brilliant complementary shades of pink and blue-green, the artist’s favorite color scheme in the early 1890s, the peak of his career, would again coruscate and dazzle the public eye.

Painted in the Classico-Romantic style taught in the state-sponsored académies de beaux arts where Luna was trained and bred, every object in "Parisian Life" is finely modeled and delineated. In the left foreground, on the inner side of the table, one cannot miss the dainty grouping of an umbrella tip, an ashtray and a glass beer mug with its contents half-consumed and the blue-green of the mug’s handle exquisitely echoed in the ashtray. Indeed, this grouping, together with the empty chair and the table, constitutes a truly magnificent still life. Almost motionless as most interiors, the room instead is convulsed by the artist’s masterly tilting of the scene to the extreme and with this coup, he amply captured all the events happening simultaneously: The obvious distraction of at least two of the three men at far left and the self-conscious movements of the woman to the right. Luna’s approach to space, evocative of the Impressionists Manet and Degas, was radically modern at the time, a stance appropriated from photography and Japanese prints. This latter had recently reached Europe for the appreciation of Europeans.

"Parisian Life" also has the distinction of being one of the very few finished oil paintings by Juan Luna in any Philippine collection, portraits aside. Until today, most of Luna’s finished paintings remain in collections outside of the country – Spain, France, Italy and England, in institutional or private collections. What we have here mainly are studies (the seemingly finished landscapes included) of works he did in Europe. To be specific, aside from portraits, there are only about a dozen completely finished oil paintings by Luna in the country compared to more than 30 abroad. The ones that are here are "Spoliarium" in the National Museum, "The Fortunate Beauty and the Blind Slave" in the Unilab collection, "Street Flower Vendors" in the López Museum, the pair of promenaders in the Ayala Museum, "Picnic in Normandy" in the Vargas Museum, UP Diliman campus, "Seated Lady in the Park"(missing since 1986), two balcony (palco) scenes in a private collection, "Lady at the Race Tracks," "Ladies and Swans," "Lady Pinning a Brooch," "Tampuhan," all, in different private collections, and "Parisian Life." As a matter of fact, the Ayala promenaders, "Lady at the Race Tracks" and "Ladies and Swans," were just repatriated in the last 10 years. Luna’s "España y Filipinas" in the López Museum may not even be in the category of finished works, being a copy made by the artist as a token of the truly more elaborate and larger version in the Victor Balaguer Library and Museum in an out-of-the-way city in Spain.

The "Spoliarium" and "Fortunate Beauty"(original Spanish title, "La bella feliz y la esclava ciega") belong to the category of non-commissioned or personally motivated works a painter, in our case, Luna, submitted for competition in the annual national exhibitions. These pieces are grand in scale and in subject, that is, historical or allegorical, a thing that appealed to the jury of the competition in accordance with the rules of the academy. The artist’s success in such competitions led to the fulfillment of his dreams of a firmly established career drawing commissioned works. Institutions made orders for portraits of their executives as well as grand subjects while private individuals commissioned their own or kin’s portraits, informal or intimate scenes, and, occasionally, a grand subject for an important room.

"Parisian Life" and the rest of the aforementioned Luna works were privately commissioned or special personal gifts (recuerdos) of the painter. Inspired by these circumstances, they were of an exceptional quality. Their subject was often one of a kind, something pertinent only to the customer or beneficiary. If the subject was not truly unique, the artist added to it a new aspect or twist, or it stood out for its unusually fine craftsmanship. From a practical level, commissioned works just simply had to be good. Understandably, the artist would have wanted to remain in the good graces of his patrons and benefactors. Thus, pieces like "Parisian Life" were especially deliberated upon and masterfully crafted. They were a class way above the cuadros de pacotilla or potboilers – effortless pieces intended to sell fast, like a vacuous vase of flowers or a simple scenery, to provide the artists’ bread and butter when there were no commissions.

The subject matter of "Parisian Life", of course, makes it extra-special as a Philippine collectible. It contains, unquestionably, a self-portrait of the artist, and depicts, perhaps, a regular part of his life, that of eating in cafés. The presence of another Filipino, Dr. Aristón Bautista and the special significance of the time when it was painted, the very climax of the Propaganda Movement, make it indeed endearing to every Filipino nationalist. Unfortunately, the claim about Rizal’s being the third man in the group, the one whose back is turned to us, has yet to find historical basis. The inscribed date of the painting, 1892, contradicts this for he was already in the Philippines by that time. Rizal left Europe for the said country on Oct. 18, 1891, arriving in Manila on June 26, 1892. In a few weeks, he would be exiled to Dapitan, to remain there permanently until shortly before his execution. Therefore, Rizal could be the third man in "Parisian Life" if the incident depicted occurred before Oct. 18, 1891, which Luna painted from memory in 1892. Aristón Bautista, on the other hand, was really in Paris in 1892. Were the painting not a mere recollection, it could be surmised that it was finished at least before May 1, 1892 when he boarded a ship at Marseilles for the Philippines.

A schoolmate of Rizal in youth, Dr. Bautista (1863-1920) wholeheartedly supported every step of the movement toward Philippine independence. Eventually, he became a member of the Malolos Congress and is remembered for his philanthropic acts. With regards to Juan Luna, he would remain in Paris with his family until Sept. 23 of the same year. On that day, he fatally shot his wife and mother-in-law in a fit of rage. Released from prison in February the following year, he would leave Paris permanently, spending most of 1893 fulfilling commissions in various Spanish cities, finally returning to Manila in May 1894.

As for "Parisian Life," it certainly captured a scene relevant to Bautista. Back in Manila, Luna would again paint for him another canvas, "Tampuhan," also featuring him. This time, the doctor is depicted leaning on a window ledge, his back turned to the viewer. An elegantly dressed seated woman at the center of the painting seems to be sulking. Living relations of Bautista confirm that the lady indeed was sulking, because the elegant doctor’s attention was trained at two women looking out from the window of the house across the street. Could the lady in "Parisian Life" be also an acquaintance or love interest of Bautista? Perhaps. At any rate, the evident curiosity of the three gentlemen in her made her fidgety or, perhaps, even caused her male companion to leave the scene, abandoning his hat and cape, captured in disarray with its underside exposed at the right edge of the painting.

In typically confident masterstrokes, Luna captured the woman’s restlessness. The pink paints piled diagonally to render her skirt show her legs to be splayed from the knees. Her left arm hangs loosely in arrested movement. The froth of white paints Luna splattered on her breast and her thickly made up face may confirm historian Ambeth Ocampo’s hunch of her as a cheap girl. Or was she a celebrity – the star or vedette of a show at the Moulin Rouge whom the three expatriates had by a stroke of luck witnessed entering the café that memorable day? At any rate, whatever the implication maybe, the masthead of the newspaper on the ledge behind her reads, "L’Étoile de Paris." Was the newspaper really there on that day or is Luna complimenting her as "the star of Paris"?

Academic art had to tell a story or, like "Parisian Life," simply hint at a plot. (No less than paint themes supporting the agenda of the establishment or preach a lesson was actually what the state desired of artists to do.) With the movies not yet invented, art exhibitions provided the most accessible form of diversion and tuition through which the masses could learn about every aspect of life that could be depicted in art. This is the precise reason that conditioned Europeans about museums as pleasant, ordinary places to visit.

People flocked in droves to experience vicariously the very same scenes that draw in today’s audiences to the current blockbuster movies, like the final moments of a tragedy in a sinking ship as in Titanic, or tense bloody combats in the Roman Colosseum as in Gladiator, but in those times, the medium was the canvas of an academic master. The regular offerings were paintings like "Parisian Life" that engrossed viewers with daily dramas in life like today’s telenovelas. In truth, this narrative role of painting, making it a mere handmaiden to literature, was a major irritation to Luna’s avant-garde contemporaries. To release it from this anachronism, these forward-looking dissidents, starting with the Impressionists, therefore created artworks that should be appreciated solely for the expressive potentials of their intrinsic resources: Colors and brush strokes. From our vantage, we know that these rebellious sensibilities would win and that, by the 1960s, with the Conceptual artists and Minimalists, every aspect of visual expression would be explored and exploited down to the very process of the artist’s creativity.

Today, there is again a clamor for artistic solutions apt to express the prevailing conditions of spiritual confusion and despair. In the United States, there is a vigorous revival in academic realism, with hundreds of artists turning out canvases in the very sensibility of academic art. The computer age has also ordained the remarriage of literature and the visual arts as proven by the demand for movies with grand themes requiring high-tech visual effects. The relative ease with which computer graphics has achieved these effects has, of course, led to a renewed wonderment over the magical gifts of the artists who achieved these realistic effects by hand generations earlier. In the European art scene, the prices for the paintings of the bigwigs of academic art like Jean Léon-Gérôme, Adolphe William Bouguereau, etc., are catching up with those paid for the Impressionists.

At any rate, except for France and Germany where Impressionism and succeeding avant-garde trends flourished, Europe never lost its admiration for academic art. Spain, in particular, despite Picasso, Gaudi and Dali, had never turned back on its glorious history of academic painting. (Picasso himself admired Luna’s works personally.) Thus, in 1992, during the celebrations to commemorate the quadricentennial of Columbus’ arrival in America, the Prado captured the attention of Europe with a major exhibition featuring the gems of Spanish nineteenth century historical painting. The exhibit awakened attention to the unquestionable virtuosity of academic realism. But what is more important to us is that the exhibition featured our very own Luna’s "La Batalla de Lepanto" which was taken down from its distinguished niche at the Palacio del Senado for this one and only time and was shown side by side all the painters Luna had competed with and surpassed in the yearly competitions of his times. Filipinos who saw the exhibit had never felt so happy in their lives, proud, indeed, that the Spanish people admire and revere Luna as part of their cultural heritage. There was no Argentinian, Peruvian, Puerto Rican or Cuban master in the show. The only foreign artist was the Filipino, Juan Luna. To no surprise, in a gallery in Spain right now, there is a Luna multi-figure scene, approximately 6 ft x 8 ft with a price of $10,000,000!

Starting as a practical expression of visions and experiences, art, unfortunately has for some people evolved to be a symbol of wealth. There was a time in the distant past when an artwork’s value was a little more than the cost of its materials. In those times, it can be said that owners of artworks must have genuinely appreciated them, that is, solely for the aesthetic appeal of their subject and craftsmanship. As the heritage of a people, these very qualities remain to be the intrinsic reason for their value, aesthetically or materially. Very unfortunately, however, most Filipinos do not appreciate their heritage. For one, most of us do not even know what heritage means and does. Other countries – and they need not be rich like Vietnam, Cambodia, Nepal, etc. – however, value it extremely so that laws regarding heritage are enforced strictly and all costs are spent to collect, preserve and conserve it. The cultural heritage is the index of the complexity and sophistication of the life ways of a people as expressed in their refinements. The older one’s heritage is, the more respect one earns from other peoples because they will acknowledge how rooted and matured are these refinements. Sophistication of vision and technology – the beauty, sentiments, and skill of our artworks – are very much behind it, which is why our cultural heritage should be preserved at all cost.

The gesture of the GSIS to acquire "Parisian Life" is no less than a heroic effort to enrich our heritage and show to other peoples the spiritual riches of our past. Western countries, like Italy, Greece, Great Britain, Germany, all already overflowing with cultural artifacts are engaged in heated wars over the restitution of their national treasures. Since 1945, we have lost 90 percent of our cultural heritage to World War II and to human neglect. And since, we are not fond of reading, particularly books on history and culture, or there are no accessibly priced books on our culture and history, we do not miss what we lack. We cannot appreciate the direct and concrete effect that cultural heritage does for a nation. It is the ages-old superior achievements of a nation that make its members proud of it. It is this pride that should unite them and, in turn, inspire them to behave and work together so that their country could become even greater. At the moment we hardly have any objects cogent and formidable enough to unify us which is why we are so lost and disunited. Countries, rich and poor alike, except us, spend a lot on enriching their museums and preserving old structures because these symbols elevate their self-respect not just before other countries but above all, among themselves. No beer, beaches or bathing beauties unfortunately can do this for us. What a shame that many of our highest officials have this mentality.

Neither did the GSIS squander people’s contributions in order to acquire "Parisian Life." The GSIS is an institution with a wealth of its own invested in numerous properties. Upon assuming his position as president of the GSIS, Feliciano "Sonny" Belmonte, later congressman and now Quezon City mayor, appointed me as the first curator consultant of the GSIS Art Collection. My duties were focused on the inventory of the collection including the holdings of the Manila Hotel and the Philippine Air Lines, assets the GSIS then owned and sold later. "Parisian Life" is now a concrete property and investment of the Filipino people to benefit them spiritually and materially forever unlike the vast amounts of money that goes to ill-advised, myopic government projects or, simply, to corruption.