Description
Ecce Homo (“Behold the Man”) or El Cristo de la Paciencia (The Christ of Patience)
signed (lower right) ca. 1896 - 1897
oil on canvas
43" x 27" (109 cm x 69 cm)
PROVENANCE A gift from the artist to the Spanish auditor-general Don Nicolas de la Peña upon his release from prison in Fort Santiago.
LITERATURE Cultura Social (monthly magazine), May 1914, Manila. Black and white illustration identifying it as “Cuadro de Luna” on the cover as well as on page 231. Filipinas Heritage Library Collection.
WRITE UP:
Nicolás de la Peña Cuéllar was born in Trujillo, (Cáceres) on February 21, 1852. He studied law and graduated in administrative law at the Central University (Madrid). He entered the army on May 12, 1875, obtained a position by competitive examination, and from January 12, 1878 until 1881 was lieutenant auditor of third class in the Captaincy General of the Balearic Islands. He soon became a prosecuting attorney of the Supreme Council of War and Navy. By then, Nicolás de la Peña, despite being barely 30 years old, had achieved two honorable decorations: Knight of Isabella the Catholic and Commander of Charles III De la Peña left his post on February 1, 1899 and was sent to Cartagena as a court-martial advisor to the army. Earlier, on December 15, 1898, a few months after the capitulation, he signed a prologue to the memoir La Campaña de la escuadra norteamericana en Filipinas (Cartagena, 1899), in which he accused the United States of not having respected international law and Spanish politicians of the war disaster. However, he made no mention of his execrable role in the process against Rizal. In 1910 he was a senator of the Spanish Cortes for the province of Valladolid for the Liberal Party. By then he was already an academician of Jurisprudence and Legislation in Madrid. He must have died shortly after, as it is no longer possible to find news of him. There is perhaps no better metaphor for Juan Luna’s frame of mind in 1896 than this portrait of ‘The Patient Christ’, waiting for his fate to be decided while he languished in Fort Santiago. Would it be long years of imprisonment or even execution? Luna had just narrowly escaped the guillotine in France, accused of the death of his wife Paz Pardo de Tavera. He had been imprisoned in September 1892 and had only been found innocent, by reason of his “savage temperament,” only in the following year in February. He had withdrawn to Madrid to forget those unpleasant circumstances and then returned to Manila in his home country in 1894 with this younger brother Antonio, hoping to recuperate and find his lost happiness. It was to be a bittersweet respite, however, punctuated by the brothers Luna opening a fencing school, Juan Luna’s side trip to Japan and then, his return immediately after the discovery of the Katipunan and the first Katipunan’s battle of Pinaglabanan. Juan and Antonio were to be swept up and arrested in the dragnet unleashed by these events and thrown into the Spanish dungeons. Wrote M. Arias y Rodriguez (1850-1924) of Luna's prison cell, a miserable state of affairs : "The dungeon consisted of a small room about three meters long by two and a half wide: a meter from the floor was a wooden floorboard that occupied the entire cell to avoid the high humidity of the floor, located at a level lower than the patio. In front of the front door there was a square window with light iron bars. The half-bleached walls had an unequal surface, almost like a rough stone, and the innumerable holes and cracks on them showed that they had not been repaired for a long time." (This report appeared in La Ilustracion Artistica, 6 August 1900 and was reproduced by Lib Ramos along with the accompanying photograph.) He noted, however, that Luna was able to have "books, colors and brushes" and thus, "for his pastime or leisure, [Luna] adorned the rough walls of the so-called dungeon with his works." Despite these privileges, Luna must surely have suffered grievously from this second round of false accusations and imprisonment. While the colonial government and the friars were suspicious of all foreign-educated Filipinos — calling them “filibusterismos” — both brothers were in fact completely innocent of the accusation that they had participated in the armed revolt. Once more, Luna would call upon the friendships made in Madrid with the highest echelons of the Spanish court and he would receive a pardon on May 27th, 1897, on the occasion of King Alfonso XIII’s birthday 10 days earlier. “Ecce Homo” would be a gift to Don Nicolas de la Peña, auditor-general of the Spanish Army and the man whose duties included recommending that Jose Rizal be brought to trial. He would, in fact, sign the sentence that would be read to Rizal on December 29th. The importance of this man would not be lost on Juan Luna and de la Pena’s descendants would note that Luna himself would give the painting the name “El Cristo de la Paciencia.” In the work at hand, Luna paints a powerful portrait of “Ecce Homo”, so called after the ironic words of Pontius Pilate as he presented Jesus Christ to the jeering mob. “El Cristo de la Paciencia” sits with two hands bound in front of him, helpless but steadfast; His face is bruised and wounded by the beatings of the Roman soldiers. He remains cloaked, however, in the white of purity and innocence. On His head, three rays represent His Godliness, as does the halo. The painting thus presents two meanings : The first, an account of Juan Luna and his sufferings; but also, more importantly, perhaps, a coded message of defiance of the innocence of Jose Rizal. Rizal after all would meet his fate and glory at the firing squad a few months earlier at the very hands of the Spanish government, represented by Don Nicolas de la Peña.
