"Style" has been one of the cornerstones not only of the modern
discipline of art history but also of social and cultural history.
In this volume, the writers consider the inadequacy of the concept
of style as essential to a person, people, place, or period. While
the subject matter of this book is specific to religious practices
and artifacts from New Mexico between the eighteenth and twentieth
centuries, the implications of these investigations are far
reaching historically, methodologically, and theoretically.
The essays collected here explore the Catholic instruments of
religious devotion produced in New Mexico from around 1760 until
the radical transformation of the tradition in the twentieth
century. The writers in this volume make three key arguments.
First, they make a case for bringing new theoretical perspectives
and research strategies to bear on the New Mexican materials and
other colonial contexts. Second, they demonstrate that the New
Mexican materials provide an excellent case study for rethinking
many of the most fundamental questions in art-historical and
anthropological study. Third, the authors collectively argue that
the New Mexican images had, and still have, importance to diverse
audiences and makers.
The distinctiveness of New Mexican santos consists not only in
their subjects (which conformed to Catholic Reformation tastes) but
also in elements that may appear to have been "merely decorative"
graphically striking and frequently elaborate abstract design
motifs and landscape references. Despite their anonymity, the
images are, as a group, readily distinguished from local products
anywhere else in the Spanish colonial world. This distinctiveness
suggests that we should inquire not so much about the individual
identities of their makers as about the collective identity of the
society and place that produced and used them.
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