Santos

Santos are religious icons or folk pictures and simply painted wooden sculptures of holy figures produced throughout Latin America and southwestern U.S.A. A santo is votive art, rarely intended to be physically descriptive of a person, so much as to be the symbolic embodiment of an ideal. Types of santos include retablos, bultos, and Christo crucifado. Retablos are painted on flat pieces of wood. Bultos are carved out of wood, and sometimes painted as well. A Christo crucifado is a crucifixion scene.Also see ex voto, milagro, and retablo.