Retaule de la Transfiguració - Jaume Huguet

Huguet's Transfiguration Altarpiece was commissioned for the church of Sant Pere de Terrassa and is one of his most theologically complex commissions. The Transfiguration — Christ's revelation of his divine nature to Peter, James, and John on Mount Tabor — was a subject of particular importance in the Eastern Church and carried growing weight in the Western church in the fifteenth century through the influence of Hesychast theology. Huguet renders the three prostrate apostles below the luminous central group with individualised expressions of awe that represent the high point of his figure characterisation.

Huguet envelops Christ in an almond-shaped mandorla of white and gold light, contrasting with the dark mountainside and the collapsed figures of the apostles below. His oil technique permits the subtle modelling of the apostles' terrified faces in ways that the earlier tempera tradition could not achieve.