ABSTRACT
If something or someone is “transparent,” we can “see through” to what lies beneath or beyond the surface. Translucency, in contrast, reveals only some of what is underneath, behind, or inside and conceals the rest. By simultaneously revealing and concealing, translucency lends interest to what lies beneath or beyond, such as the cloaking or wrapping of environmental artists Christo and Jeanne-Claude, or Roland Barth's “writerly” text, 1 or the geisha's kimono. From the Latin root meaning “to shine through,” translucency might even be understood as revealing through concealing.
