Customer Reviews

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)

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"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).

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.

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.)

"Is it possible to take advantage of the extraordinary conceptual development of the euro-centric academic disciplines...in order to study...the 'art of the other' (be it in terms of civilizations such as non-european or in socioeconomic terms such as the rural or 'popular')? Irene Curbelo's book represents "the most important Puerto Rican contribution to this incandescent international debate." (From comments by A.G. Quintero Rivera, sociologist and professor at the University of Puerto Rico, delivered at the Museum of Puerto Rican Art on June 25th, 2003).