The Expressive Other: Understanding and Enjoying Puerto Rican Santos = La Expresividad en el Otro: Como Entender y Gozar los Santos de Puerto Rico (bilingual edition) [Hardcover]

Irene Curbelo (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 1, 2003

A hardcover bilingual edition in both English and Spanish. Each version contains 202 pages of text,reproductions of 30 color photographs of Santos, 28 black and white photographs of historical material and extraneous artworks that serve explicative or comparative purposes, an Index, a Bibliography and Endnotes.

Editorial Reviews

From the Inside Flap

Taking as her point of departure the religious images known as Santos that were made in rural Puerto Rico during pre-industrial times, the author clarifies the principles that determine how to interpret and enjoy art forms from other times and places. Many works that have been dismissed as utilitarian or craft objects, she says, are actually the result of an urge to express an idea visually. To realize this, the observer must read the works against the background of the worldview of the artists and their visual and artistic traditions. It is the imaginative leap to other cultures that opens new paths for analysis and engenders fresh understandings. In an interdisciplinary study designed for the general reader, the author inserts the Santos within the domain of expressive art as a result of which they rematerialize as visual texts that give pleasure because of their expressiveness and creativity.

About the Author

Trained in Law and Philosophy, Irene Curbelo has published articles on themes arising from both disciplines. She has also taught Ethics at the University of Puerto Rico. A deep-seated interest in art drew her to investigate the conundrums present in the field of Esthetics, particularly those relating to the appreciation of artworks alien to the artistic tradition of the academic West. Her inquiries led to the publication of two monographs on the Puerto Rican religious art of yesteryear: Santos de Puerto Rico and The Art of the Puerto Rican Santeros. The present book represents her more encompassing and mature thinking on the subject.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 490 pages
• Publisher: Diomedes Press (March 1, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0971227608
• ISBN-13: 978-0971227606
• Product Dimensions: 9.7 x 7.4 x 1.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #563,983 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Santos: Art or Craft, June 16, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: The Expressive Other: Understanding and Enjoying Puerto Rican Santos = La Expresividad en el Otro: Como Entender y Gozar los Santos de Puerto Rico (bilingual edition) (Hardcover)

"In this bilingual edition, with magnificent illustrations, Irene Curbelo questions the way a work of art that obeys canons different from those accepted traditionally in european art is judged and evaluated...In Chapter V, titled Understanding the Santos, this scholar contributes powerfully to increase...the pleasure that contemporary art lovers feel when viewing the Santos...It offers a fascinating account of the whole artistic vocabulary constructed in terms of their function...The reading of this chapter offers an opportunity to observe the Santos more closely as it analyzes the elements that particularize them. It clarifies the ways in which the artists interpreted their world and utilized their artistic materials expressively...As a result, these pieces acquire an expressive value that places them on an artistic plane well beyond the mere artifact." (translated excerpts from the literary review by Carmen Dolores Hernandez published in San Juan by El Nuevo Dia, June 8, 2003, pg. 14).

2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Puerto Rican Santos, May 27, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: The Expressive Other: Understanding and Enjoying Puerto Rican Santos = La Expresividad en el Otro: Como Entender y Gozar los Santos de Puerto Rico (bilingual edition) (Hardcover)

For anyone interested in art (not only in Puerto Rican art, but in learning to read a work of art in general) this is a marvelous book. The language is straightforward and concise, managing to convey a complicated subject matter with refreshing clarity. The santos -- charming, colorful, whimsical -- make an interesting case study. They also grant us insight into the character, religious and otherwise, of the 18th and 19th century Puerto Rican. The historical background of the santos and the folklore surrounding them make for very engaging reading. The book is well-illustrated by many period photographs.

1 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Expressive Other, July 3, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: The Expressive Other: Understanding and Enjoying Puerto Rican Santos = La Expresividad en el Otro: Como Entender y Gozar los Santos de Puerto Rico (bilingual edition) (Hardcover)

Once the thesis that Santos are art "is established and proved, the word comes alive, the image reveals itself in all its splendor, its meanings and power amplified, and the reader, who now believes in the beauty and expressiveness of the Santos and is able to participate in the enjoyment of them, wants to continue the 'fiesta', to inhabit for a while longer the temple that the book has built for the carvings." (From comments by Antonio Martorell, artist and professor at the University of Puerto Rico, delivered at the Museum of Puerto Rican Art on June 25th, 2003.)