The Stories of Strangers: Mexican "Ex-Voto" Paintings.

The author discusses Mexican ex-voto paintings in this article. An ex-voto refers to a painting from the mid-eighteenth to mid-twentieth centuries that hung behind church altars alongside sanctified retablos or portraits of saints. Each of these paintings narrates a saint in action, such as intervening in a near-disaster, and commemorates their miraculous intervention, as well as expresses the gratitude of the survivors or family members. According to the author, ex-votos are common and they often pass from artists to church to vendor without any documentation. A wide range of near-fatal moments and man-made disasters are portrayed in ex-votos including electrocutions, animal attacks, and attacks by soldiers.