Transparentes de la Nueva España.

Abstract

The Transparent are open bays in an altarpiece or in a facade in front of which an image is placed that appears to be surrounded by an Aureola, when acting against the backlight to the spectator. They were a resource, among many others, used in Baroque art in order to enrich the works and make them more theatrical by means of light management, as well as windows in the form of stars with curtains and abundant ornamentation. But the Transparent also had a symbolic function of crucial importance that can be summed up in making visible the celestial Jerusalem into which the New Spain society converted its cities and religious enclosures. This article explains this meaning in the three types of Transparent made in New Spain: interior ones, exterior ones, and those opened in the major altarpieces.