Carved and Painted Saints for the Household

Retablo and santos making is the folk Catholic image craft of the Spanish colonial Americas, producing santos, images of saints made in two related forms: bultos, three dimensional carved and painted wooden figures typically standing or seated, and retablos in their older architectural sense, flat painted panels depicting a saint or holy scene, both intended primarily for devotional use in home altars, small chapels and parish churches across colonial and postcolonial Latin America and the American Southwest rather than as fine art produced for elite patronage or public display alone. The tradition developed distinctively regional character, with New Mexican santero, saint maker, tradition in particular sustaining a recognisable, comparatively austere carving and painting style across the Spanish colonial and Mexican periods and into the present, distinguishable from equivalent traditions further south in Mexico proper, reflecting the santos tradition's consistent pattern of adaptation to local materials, artistic training and community taste even while sharing the same underlying devotional purpose and Iberian Catholic origin across the wider region.