Peruaanse Altaarstuk

Altaarstuk of Retablos are a sophisticated Andean folk art in the form of portable boxes which depict religious, historical, or everyday events that are important to the Indigenous people of the highlands of Peru and Bolivia. The Spanish word retablo comes from the Latin retro-tabulum (“behind the table or altar”), which was later shortened to retabulum. This is a reference to the fact that the first retablos were placed on or behind the altars of Catholic churches in Spain and Latin America. They were three-dimensional statues or images inside a decorated frame. The tradition of making cajones sanmarcos or retablos is very strong in the mountainous Peruvian region around the city of Ayacucho. In recent years the political violence and the fighting between the Peruvian Army and the Marxist Sendero Luminoso (“Shining Path”) guerrillas around Ayacucho has forced many peasant families in the area to migrate to the capital city of Lima, where they make and sell their crafts commercially. Nicario Jiménez Quispe (Quispe is his mother’s name) is a master artisan of the craft of making retablos. He was born in 1957 in a small highland Andean village near Ayacucho, and learned how to make retablos from his father and other skilled craftsmen. He has studied at the University of San Marcos in Lima, and has exhibited his retablos in Peru and abroad in several international competitions. His photo was taken while doing a demonstration at American University’s Language and Foreign Studies Department in 1991.