José Rafael Aragón: A Santero Among the Pueblos

This proposed paper examines the debt that famed santero José Rafael Aragón owes to Pueblo makers in early nineteenth-century Nuevo México. Among the most influential creators of Northern New Mexico’s particular forms of religious art, Aragón was born in the northern provinces of New Spain in 1796. To colonize it, the Spanish had invaded the territory twice: once in 1598, and again nearly a century later, following a successful overthrow by a coalition of the Pueblo peoples. In addition to the many bultos—wooden carvings of saints—and retablos—small-scale religious paintings—Aragón produced, he also painted wooden altar screens in churches throughout the region. Workers with both Spanish and Indigenous backgrounds built the churches and their interior furniture, which were often constructed using Pueblo knowledge. Aragón’s screens are informed by Pueblo woodcarvings, such as sacred benches, adorned with spiritual imagery.

Aragón’s work, like the regionally specific art it helped to inspire, is born of the syncretic religion that developed in Nuevo México during the colonial period. In addition to contributing their expertise in building and design, Pueblo communities were parishioners of churches such as San Lorenzo in Picurís Pueblo, for which Aragón painted a screen. The oratory at the Plaza del Cerro in Chimayó, meanwhile, for which he also contributed work, was built near a sacred ancestral site. Distance from colonial centers such as Mexico City allowed outsider religious groups such as the Penitente brotherhood to freely integrate Indigenous and European practices, helping New Mexico to become the artistic crossroads it remains today.