Retablo

More generally retablo is also the Spanish term for a retable or reredos above an altar, whether a large altarpiece painting or an elaborate wooden structure with sculptures.

Small retablos are devotional or votive paintings, often on rectangular sheets of tin that illustrate holy images such as Christ, the Virgin Mother, or one of the hundreds of saints.

Reredos of the Late Middle Ages and Renaissance in Spain grew extremely large and elaborate, typically using carved and gilded wood, and rising as high as 40 feet or more.

When people wished to express gratitude, they could give retablos that described "the miraculous deed of a saint to whom the petitioner turned to in a time of need".

[6] These traditions are by no means exclusive to Latin America, but are found in all Roman Catholic countries, as well as in classical paganism and many other religions.

To judge by survivals, similar small paintings were especially common in the German-speaking Catholic areas of Europe in the Early Modern period.

[7] Retablos are important to Mexican folk religion because they are a physical representation of holy images such as Christ, the Virgin Mother, or one of the many thousands of saints.

Pigments also were made locally from natural materials, colored piles of earth, plant extracts, cochineal bugs, and lamp black.

[citation needed] These traditional retablos and other indigenous religious art were removed by bishop Jean-Baptiste Lamy throughout New Mexico after the conquest of these territories by the US Army.

"[9] Many others in the area, including Nicario Jimenez Quispe, continued along the same path as Antay, creating a popular art that was displayed during the annual branding ceremonies of cattle, sheep, and llamas.

Mexican oil paint on tin retablo of ' Our Lady of Guadalupe ', 19th century, El Paso Museum of Art
Mexican oil on copper retablo of the traditional subject of the Man of Sorrows , 17th century.
A Baroque carved wood reredos , or retablo in the original Spanish sense, Tenerife .
Painting in a naive style. At left a man bleeding heavily leans against a wall; in the background another man with a knife runs away. At right in a separate scene four people kneel, holding candles, before an altar with a crowned image of a woman. Four lines of writing in Spanish are at bottom, with a few other lines elsewhere.
Mexican ex-voto of 1935 – survival of a stabbing; Our Lady of San Juan de los Lagos again.