Retablos y Exvotos

Folk paintings in essence--with a component of giving gratitude for an act of salvation (for example a la Virgen de Guadalupe, o al Santo Niño de Atocha), and often quite beautiful as works in themselves--the retablos range from elegant and sophisticated painting (as above, where the Baroque meets México) to the most simple and homespun...

and sometimes quite mysterious in terms of pictorial effect:

Often painted on scrap metal, from oil cans or the like, with technique as varied as the artists who make them--and sometimes humorous (or poignant) in theme (here one guesses at the meanings they had for those who commissioned them)--and always a reflection of daily life in unexpected--and therefore lively--ways. The sensibility? Pues, Mexicana--hasta la madre...

And always with their own unpredictable sincerity...and animation...

And because they're painted in such a journeyman-like manner (the focus generally being to get across the basics of the scene--even when at their pictorially most inventive) they offer a kind of model for the class. That is, you can't go wrong!

Just tell your story...! Whether it's something from far back in the past...

O temas de hoy en día...

or maybe even somebody you know... (pintura y foto, de 1968...)

This one shows the shape of the metal ("the support") particularly well, and as often, the connection with rural as well as more urban themes. That both co-exist in this retablo tradition nos dice mucho del México aún de hoy:

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Some source materials (added Jan 2017):

Retablos y Exvotos - Bibliography

Gloria Kay Giffords. Mexican Folk Retablos: Masterpieces on Tin. Tucson: University of Arizona, 1974.
(Giffords is a key writer on the subject of retablos.)

Gloria Giffords, Mexican Folk Retablos (Revised Edition).  Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1992.

Zarur and Lovell, Art and Faith in Mexico: The Nineteenth Century Retablo Tradition. UNM Press, 2001.  Edited by Elizabeth Netto Calli Zarur and Charles Muir Lovell.

Jorge Durand and Douglas S. Massey, Miracles on the Border: Retablos of Mexican Migrants to the United States. University of Arizona, 1995.

Gloria Fraser Giffords, ed. The Art of Private Devotion: Retablo Painting of Mexico. Dallas: The Meadows Museum, 1991.

George Kubler (introductory essay), Santos, Fort Worth, Amon Carter Museum of Western Art, 1964.

Alfredo Vilchis Roque, Contemporary Mexican Votive Painting, San Francisco: Chronicle Books, 2003.