[13] This fact and the circumstance that the confrontation of the two groups happens within a studio makes it verisimilar that self-reflective questions of the young artist are addressed in La Vie.

In 2003 Becht-Jördens and Wehmeier recognized the well known painting Noli me tangere, a masterpiece by Antonio da Correggio in the Museo del Prado, as the possible source for this gesture[15] and proposed an interpretation situated on two levels.

The first, a biographical one that concerns the dyadic mother and child relationship and "the mental trauma and feelings of guilt that result from the inevitable conflicts" caused by detachment, and the second, a self-referential one about the Messianic mission of the modern artist in the sense of Friedrich Nietzsche, "his role in the world, and [...] the very essence of art".

The two levels of interpretation are "interconnected by the significant role played by Picasso’s mother", who protected and adored her baby thus establishing some kind of cult of the divine child and by admiring her son and his first attempts "encouraged him to follow his way and reinforced him in his self-perception as a genius".

Thus, La Vie can be understood both as an answer to autobiographical experiences of the young Picasso and as a self-referential comment on his role as an artist and as an annotation on his fundamentally new art.