page_title: Retablo
section_title: The small paintings
hierarchical_section_title: Retablo / The small paintings
caption_attribution_description: retablo
context_page_description: A retablo is a devotional painting, especially a small popular or folk art one using iconography derived from traditional Catholic church art. 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. Typically this includes painting, sculpture or a combination of the two, and an elaborate framework enclosing it. The Latin etymology of the Spanish word means "board behind". Aside from being found behind the altar, "similar ornamental structures are built and carved over facades and doorways", called overdoors.
  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. Many are ex-votos that depict the story that led to their commission, usually dangerous or threatening events that actually occurred, and which the person survived, thanks to the intercession of a sacred person – God, Mary or a saint. They are made as a way of thanking the sacred person for protection in precarious situations, such as surviving an illness or earthquake.
context_section_description: The popular labeling of ex-votos as "Retablos" can be traced back to the late 18th century. In 1950, Mexican artist Roberto Montenegro published a history of Mexican altarpieces which included a votive painting dated 1781, that contained an inscription which offers thanks to Nuestra Señora de Dolores de Xaltocan for renewing the people's health after a severe illness. On the bottom of the votive painting left, a message is inscribed that read en cuia memoria dedica a su Magestad este Retablo (in whose memory he dedicates to her Majesty this retablo).
  The oil painted retablos generated the need for "small retablo factories" to be established in order to "reproduce the same images" which were then "sold to devout believers who displayed them in home altars to honor their patron Saints."  Not only were the retablos purchased by those wanting to show devotion to their patron saints, they were also given when the saints were there for their devotees in hard times.  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".  People call upon these saints for aid with rain, harvests or other outcomes.  For example, if a farmer needs rain for his crops he might pray for rain. After the rain comes, a retablo might be created to give thanks to San Ysidro Labrador, the patron saint of farmers. He is "venerated for good weather, agricultural issues and prosperous crops". That figure would most likely be kept in the farmer's house. Each time rain was needed in the future, that farmer might pray in front of that retablo. 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.  By the 19th century, the process of lithography became very popular for devotional retablos, replacing earlier printmaking methods.
caption: Mexican oil on copper retablo of the traditional subject of the Man of Sorrows, 17th century.
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