Continuum: Sermo Humilis
The thousand-year history of Taos Pueblo has shaped its unique northern New Mexico cultural traditions. And with the arrival in 1540 of Spanish soldiers and Franciscan missionaries in Taos Valley and the establishment of the Spanish village in 1615, the Hispanic settlers would adapt their own religious and artistic legacy to create a local culture embodied in the painted santos and carved bultos.
The aesthetic core of that tradition traces to the Christian “sermo humilis”—the humble or low style—which merged in late antiquity with the Greco-Roman “sermo sublimis”—the elevated or grave style—in early Christian art and literature, to dominate spiritual expression in the Middle Ages and even later (especially in Spain): At the beginning of the thirteenth century there appears in Italy a man who embodies, in exemplary fashion, … the mixture of ecstatically sublime immersion in God and humbly concrete everydayness. … He is Saint Francis of Assisi. … Self-surrendering and meditative mystic though he himself was, the decisive thing for him and his companions was living among the people, living among the lowliest as the lowliest and most despised of them all. (Erich Auerbach, Mimesis, p. 151 ff.)
And it was the Franciscans accompanying the Spanish settlers who would inform Taos Hispanic culture with this aesthetic of the “sermo humilis,” embodied in Francis of Assisi, the patron saint of Santa Fe and arguably the saint who most frequently depicted in the northern New Mexico santero tradition.
Exhibition list of Continuum in the Hispanic Traditions gallery:
1 Unknown Artist
San Jose. Santo Nino Santero, 1850
Painted wood
Gift of Mabel Dodge Luhan
1980.0150.0000
2 José Rafael Aragón
San Jose, 1840s
Painted wood
Gift of Mabel Dodge Luhan
1980.0152.0000
3 José Rafael Aragón
San Jose, 1840s
Painted wood
Gift of Mabel Dodge Luhan
1980.0144.0000
4 José Rafael Aragón
San Jose, 1840s
Painted wood
Gift of Mabel Dodge Luhan
1980.0188.0000
5 Santero Laguna
San Jose, c. 1875
Painted wood
Gift of Mabel Dodge Luhan
1980.0127.0000
6 Jose Benito Ortega
Nuestra Señora c. 1890
Carved wood with gessoed cloth and polychrome
Anonymous Gift
1996.0090.0000
7 Luis Tapia
Nuestra Señora de Soledad, c.1990
Painted wood
Gift of Lynn Steuer
2000.0016.0000
8 José Rafael Aragón
N.S. del Refugio de los Pecadores (Pescadores), c. 1840
Painted wood
Gift of Mabel Dodge Luhan
1980.0140.0000
9 Catherine Robles-Shaw
Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe, 1996
Painted wood
Museum Purchase
1997.0001.0000
10 Antonio Molleno
N. Señora de las Candelarias, c. 1820
Painted wood
Gift of Mabel Dodge Luhan
1980.0187.0000
11 Gustavo Victor Goler
Our Lady of All Nations, 2012
Carved and painted wood
Gift of Alfred J. Walker
2013.0073.0000
12 Pedro Fresquís
Guadalupe, c. 1800
Painted wood
Gift of Mabel Dodge Luhan
1980.0107.0000
13 Anonymous Artist
Holy Family, c. 1850
Painted wood
Gift of Mabel Dodge Luhan
1980.0170.0000
14 José Rafael Aragón
Trinity (La Santisima Trinidad), c. 1840
Painted wood
Gift of Mabel Dodge Luhan
1980.0108.0000
15 Jose Armijo
La Sagrada Familia, 1998
Painted wood
Museum Purchase
1998.0029.0000
16 José Rafael Aragón
La Santa Familia, c. 1845
Painted wood
Gift of Mabel Dodge Luhan
1980.0174.0000
17 José Rafael Aragón
San Ignacio de Loyola, c. 1875
Painted wood
Gift of Mabel Dodge Luhan
1980.0121.0000
18 Nicholas Herrera
Mi Vida de 25, 2000
Wood, mixed media
Gift of Harwood Museum Alliance
2000.0055.0000
19 Anonymous Artist
St. Stephen- Framed Card, c. 1875
Tin, stripped wallpaper and glass
Gift of Elizabeth Compton Hegemann
1980.0007.0000
20 Unknown Artist
Candle Sconce, Valencia Red & Green Tinsmith, c. 1875
Tin and mixed media
Gift of Elizabeth Compton Hegemann
1980.0016.0000
21 Anonymous Artist
Nicho, c. 1895
Tin and glass
Gift of Elizabeth Compton Hegemann
1980.0015.0000
22 Unknown Artist
Cross Rio Abajo Workshop, 1875
Tin and mixed media
Gift of Elizabeth Compton Hegemann
1980.0018.0000
23 Anita Romero-Jones
Altarpiece, 1992
Tin and paint
Museum Purchase
1994.0001.0000
24 Unknown Artist
San Lucas - Framed Card, Valencia Red & Green Tinsmith, c. 1875
Tin and mixed media
Gift of Elizabeth Compton Hegemann
1980.0013.0000
25 Jose Maria Apodaca
Nicho with frame and
watercolor, c. 1910
Tin and mixed media
Gift of Elizabeth Compton Hegemann
1980.0001.0000
26 Unknown Artist
Tin Nicho, n.d.
Tin
Gift of Elizabeth Compton Hegemann
27 Pedro Fresquís
San Antonio and Niño, c. 1800
Painted wood
Gift of Mabel Dodge Luhan
1980.0124.0000
28 Unknown Artist
Nicho, Santa Fe Federal, c. 1865
Tin and mixed media
Gift of Elizabeth Compton Hegemann
1980.0003.0000
29 Unknown Artist
St. Matthew - Framed Card, Valencia Red & Green Tinsmith, c. 1885
Tin and mixed media
Gift of Elizabeth Compton Hegemann
1980.0012.0000
30 Felix Lopez
San Juan Nepomuceno, 1988
Painted wood
Bequest of Wallace Bacon
T2007-101(2)
31 Ernie Lujan
San Miguel Arcangel, 1994
Carved painted wood
Gift of James and Margie Krebs
2008.0007.0001
32 Antonio Molleno
San Miguel, c. 1820
Painted wood
Gift of Mabel Dodge Luhan
1980.0173.0000
33 Patrociño Barela
Untitled (The Good Shepherd), 1949
Wood
Gift of Nancy Lipsett
2002.0005.0000
34 Patrociño Barela
Prayer, c. 1940
Painted wood
Gift of Lynn Steuer
2000.0016.0000
35 Patrociño Barela
Bulto, c. 1940
Painted wood
Gift of WPA
1980.0058.0000
36 Patrociño Barela
Bulto- Heavy Thinker, c. 1940
Wood
Gift of WPA
1980.0033.0000
37 George Lopez
San Rafael, c. 1990
Wood
Gift of Ernest Ziegfeld
2004.0086.0000
38 Carlos Barela
Moses, 1996
Carved juniper wood
Museum Purchase
1996.0006.0000
39 Leo Salazar
St. Anthony, c. 1970
Wood
Gift of Esla Henschke
in memory of Jane Adair
1994.0037.0000
40 Luis B. Barela
Cristo Crusificado con Maria y Jose a Sus Pies (Crucified Christ with Mary and Joseph at His Feet), 1995
Carved juniper wood
Museum Purchase
1996.0005.0000
41 Max Roybal
Doña Sebastiana, c. 1980
Wood Construction
Gift of John & Faye Abrams
1998.0051.0000
42 Gustavo Victor Goler
Doña Sebastiana, 2006
Painted wood carving
The Harwood Museum of Art, Partial gift of Alfred J. Walker with purchase funds from Alyce Frank, the Harwood Museum Alliance, Raymond Bal & Elizabeth Kay, Brad & Fran Taylor, Gary and Barbara DeVane, and Palacio de Marquesa.
2014.0084.0000
43 Unknown Artist
Doña Sebastiana, n.d.
Wood Construction
T2016.14
44 Anonymous
Jesus of Nazareth, c. 1850
Carved painted wood
Gift of Mabel Dodge Luhan
1980.0203.0000
45 Jose Benito Ortega
Jesus Nazareno, c. 1900
Carved wood
Museum Purchase
1996.0012.0000
46 Pedro Fresquís
Christ Crucified and the Souls in Purgatory, c. 1800
Painted wood
Gift of Mabel Dodge Luhan
1980.0156.0000
47 Arthur Lopez
El Salvador del Mundo (Saviour of the World), 2006
Painted wood
Purchase made possible by Gus Foster
2006.0003.0000
48 Anonymous
Cross, c. 1850
Wood, straw
Gift of Mabel Dodge Luhan
1980.0206.000
49 Dorothy Benrimo
Cross, c. 1950
Wooden cross, straw
Gift of Mandelman-Ribak Foundation
2011.0009.0000
50 Anonymous
Cristo, c. 1875
Painted wood and cloth
Gift of Mabel Dodge Luhan
1980.0120.0000
