Mexican Outsider and Self Taught Art

Traditional “Pita” Belt and Buckle Pita comes from the fiber of the big maguey Or large Mexican cactus and is hand inlaid With Mexican charro designe. The remaining Leather is ha...

A framed vintage oil on tin ex-voto retablo Arcangel San Miguel, Spanish Colonial Mexican religious folk art. Primitive hand-painted tin panel, marked Guanajuato, Mexico, dated 19??, offered to Arcangel San Miguel (Archangel Michael), with hand-written inscription in lower margin. Professionally framed and matted. An ex-voto is a votive offering to a saint or a divinity, given in fulfillment of a vow (hence the Latin term, short for ex voto suscepto, "from the vow made") or in gratitude or devotion. Usually praying for a family member or close friend, with pictorial depicting that persons situation. The term ex-voto is usually restricted to Christian examples. Ex-votos are placed in a church or chapel where the worshiper seeks grace or wishes to give thanks. The destinations of pilgrimages often include shrines with the walls decorated with ex-votos. Ex-votos can take a wide variety of forms. They are not only intended for the helping figure, but also as a testimony to later visitors of the received help. As such they may include texts explaining a miracle attributed to the helper, or symbols such as a painted or modeled reproduction of a miraculously healed body part, or a directly related item such as a crutch given by a person formerly lame. There are places where a very old tradition of depositing ex-votos existed, such as Abydos in ancient Egypt. Ex-voto paintings, especially in the Latin world, there is a tradition of votive paintings, typically depicting a dangerous incident which the offeror survived. The votive paintings of Mexico...