RETABLO. PASÑACHA

Pasñacha Year: 1987 Dimensions: Open: 27.5 x 63 x 11.5 cm / Closed: 27.5 x 31 x 11.5 cm Inspired by the huayno "Pasñacha" by Ranulfo Fuentes, this retablo shows different scenes of courtship through a temporal sequence from left to right. On the left we see a young man peering from behind a maguey plant, watching a young unmarried woman—pasñacha—washing clothes on a stone in the river. In the middle of the river we see another moment of courtship between the same characters. Then the pasñacha is on a rock, combing her hair and dipping her feet in the water. The suitor offers her a comb made of bull horn, which symbolizes virility, and tells her he comes from the fiercest bull at the Yawar fiesta. This festival appears portrayed in the scene on the right. The presence of the river—worked in great detail by Edilberto Jiménez—is central to this retablo. One can even see what happens beneath the surface of the moving current, where the girl's feet are submerged, surrounded by rocks and a frog that seems to symbolize, like the water, the feminine. The painted background on the interior of the box creates a sense of depth, in which the river continues until it disappears in the distance, behind the hills, beneath an intensely blue sky typical of a sunny day. Both the crown and the interior of the retablo's doors feature colorful flowers drawn on a white background.