Behind the saints.

• Position: Americas !Ojo! - Brief Article

SANTOS: SUBSTANCE & SOUL is a new traveling exhibition that offers the improbable union of science and the sacred. Looking at the materials, methods, and makers of santos, this first-ever exhibition shows how modern technology can shed new light on an old tradition.

The Santos exhibition reveals how conservators use chemical analysis, microscopy, and X-ray imaging, for example, to see beneath the imagery and iconography of any object, revealing aspects of its history invisible to the naked eye. X-rays answer structural questions about santos, providing researchers and conservators with information on how limbs, symbols, and distinctive elements are attached.

According to the Smithsonian Center for Materials Research and Education (SCMRE), one purpose of such research can be to obtain more contextual information about an object. When, where, how, and by whom was it made? What happened to it in its history? What does this tell us about the people who made it?

Focusing...