Ex-Voto (Retablo)

エクスボート（奉納画） / 18th century– / Style / Popular Painting

Mexico's votive paintings give thanks for deliverance from disaster. Painted on tin, they hold the scene of the crisis, a holy image and a handwritten testimony on one small sheet, and the urgency of the untrained brush drew Kahlo and other modern painters to them.

Ex-Voto (Retablo) — Ex-voto 1887 — Wikimedia Commons / Public domain — Ex-voto 1887 — Wikimedia Commons / Public domain

Ex-Voto (Retablo) — Ex-voto 1935 — Wikimedia Commons / Public domain — Ex-voto 1935 — Wikimedia Commons / Public domain

Ex-Voto (Retablo) — Wall of ex-votos in a church (CC BY-SA 3.0) · © AlejandroLinaresGarcia — Wall of ex-votos in a church (CC BY-SA 3.0) · CC BY-SA 3.0 · © AlejandroLinaresGarcia

At a glance

Visual cues

Small tin panels
Scene, image and testimony in three layers
Naive perspective
Records of accident and miracle

Best used for

Personal testimony told with the words and the picture on one surface
Recording thanks one incident at a time on small panels

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Dictionary entry

Type: Handwritten testimony packed along the bottom, name and date last
Composition: Divide into three, the holy image above, the incident between, the words below
Material: Oil on small tin, drawing what matters large and ignoring perspective
Caution: Copying the naive picture and dropping the testimony leaves no one's incident on the panel, and the votive act itself goes missing.
Further study: Frida Kahlo's collection / the lettering of testimonies / retablo painters today

Related entries

Posada's Calaveras (ポサダのカラベラ)Shared effects: Nostalgia.Compare Ex-Voto (Retablo) and Posada's Calaveras
Naïve (ナイーブ)Shared effects: Intimacy.Compare Ex-Voto (Retablo) and Naïve

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