Reredos
A reredos (Template:IPAc-en Template:Respell, Template:Respell, Template:Respell) is a large altarpiece, a screen, or decoration placed behind the altar in a church. It often includes religious images.
The term reredos may also be used for similar structures, if elaborate, in secular architecture, for example very grand carved chimneypieces.<ref>"Reredos", Baca, Murtha, and Visual Resources Association, Cataloging Cultural Objects: A Guide to Describing Cultural Works and Their Images, 2006, American Library Association, Template:ISBN, 9780838935644</ref> It also refers to a simple, low stone wall placed behind a hearth.
DescriptionEdit
A reredos can be made of stone, wood, metal, ivory, or a combination of materials. The images may be painted, carved, gilded, composed of mosaics, and/or embedded with niches for statues. Sometimes a tapestry or another fabric such as silk or velvet is used.
Derivation and history of the termEdit
Reredos is derived through Middle English from the 14th-century Anglo-Norman areredos, which in turn is fromTemplate:Nbsparere 'behind' +Template:Nbspdos 'back', from Latin {{#invoke:Lang|lang}}. (Despite its appearance, the first part of the word is not formed by doubling the prefix "re-", but by an archaic spelling of "rear".) In the 14th and 15th centuries the term referred generally to an open hearth of a fireplace or to a screen placed behind a table, then became nearly obsolete until it was revived in the 19th century.
Reredos vs retableEdit
The term reredos is sometimes confused with the term retable. While a reredos generally forms or covers the wall behind an altar,<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> a retable is placed either on the altar or immediately behind and attached to the altar. "Many altars have both a reredos and a retable."<ref>Art & Architecture Thesaurus Online "Retable"</ref> But this distinction may not always be observed. The retable may have become part of the reredos when an altar was moved away from the wall. For altars that are against the wall, the retable often sits on top of the altar, at the back, particularly when there is no reredos (in which case a dossal curtain or something similar is used instead of a reredos). The retable may hold flowers and candlesticks.
In French (and sometimes in English by confusing the terms), a reredos is called a {{#invoke:Lang|lang}}; in Spanish a {{#invoke:Lang|lang}}, etc.
GalleryEdit
- New College Chapel Interior 2, Oxford, UK - Diliff.jpg
New College, Oxford Chapel reredos, UK
- Retablo mayor de la Basílica del Pilar.jpg
Altar of The Basilica of Our Lady of the Pillar in Zaragoza
- Tarancon - Iglesia de Nra. Sra. de la Asuncion 3.jpg
Iglesia de Nuestra Señora de la Asunción, Tarancón
- West Bromwich Holy Trinity Church reredos 01.jpg
Holy Trinity Church, West Bromwich, war memorial for World War I
- SanJuanCapistranoGrandRetablo.jpg
The "Grand Retablo", Mission Basilica San Juan Capistrano
- Basilica Screen Cathedral Basilica St Francis Santa Fe NewMexico PA300106.jpg
Cathedral Basilica of St. Francis, Santa Fe, New Mexico
- Basilica Minore del Santo Niño de Cebu inside altar (Osmeña Boulevard, Cebu City; 01-14-2023).jpg
Main altar "retablo" of the Basilica Minore del Sto. Niño in Cebu City, Philippines
- Reredos at St Mary's Church, West Rainton. By Antonio Salviati 01.JPG
Plain altarpiece painting
- Lalique glass altarpiece in the Glass Church Jersey.jpg
Modern Lalique glass reredos, Saint Matthew's Church ("the Glass Church"), Millbrook, Jersey
- Grace Church in New York.jpg
Grace Church in New York Reredos, Grace Church (Manhattan)
- Templo de Santa Rosa de Lima (de las Rosas) en Morelia, Michoacán (6011826833).jpg
CitationClass=web }}</ref>
- Despenser Retable, Norwich Cathedral, England.jpg
Despenser reredos at Norwich Cathedral, UK<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
See alsoEdit
ReferencesEdit
External linksEdit
Template:Sister project Template:Wikt
- "Reredos" in the Encyclopædia Britannica