If popular imagery is accepted as an element inherent to the concept of sculpture, it would be valid to affirm that the carving of saints is par excellence its art. Popular carving is perhaps the paramount fruit of the spontaneous artistic expression whose seed was planted in the sensitivity of the Puerto Rican Creole, back the early 16th century. Among the expressive attributes of the different images stands out the physiognomic typology of the Spaniard of the time of the conquest, the influence of the aboriginal Puerto Ricans and Africans, and the religious iconography conditioned by the imaginative flight of the santero. The most important workshops that we relate sometimes concern several generations of one same family the Cabóns of Camuy; the Riveras of Orocovis; the Arces of Arecibo; the Arces of Lares (better known as the Cachetones) and isolated cases like Carlos Vázquez (Ceoles); Juan Muñoz (Rincón); Claudio Pacheco (Vega Baja); Ramón García (Vega Alta); among others. The favorite themes have been The Three Wise Men of the East, Virgin Carmen. In the 16th century, along with the emergence of the popular santeria, profession sculptural works arrive on the island from Spain that will be the object of deep devotion and that, in turn, will serve as incentives for the development of the popular art. We are talking, especially, about the Ponces’ Christ, which is conserved in the Church of San José. Another excellent sculpture was the alabaster effigy of Bishop Alonso Manso, who appeared with a lamb at his feet, destroyed by the Dutchmen in 1625. It was in a niche in the cathedral and could very well mean the rooting of a funereal sculptural tradition on the island. We should forget the only Renaissance heraldic high relief sculpted in stone from local quarries still conserved: that of the Garci-Troches and Ponce de Leóns that lies embedded high up in one of the walls of the presbytery of the Church of San José. From the 17th century, the sculptures of the apostles Santiago and St. Philip, carved in 1610 by Blosi Hernández Bello and worshipped at the Santa Catalina chapel next to the fortress walls, were stolen, as well as Virgin Candelaria, brought to the island by 1613 and of which only the body of the boy Jesus is conserved in the San José church. From the 18th and 19th centuries it is necessary to highlight the first family of Puerto Rican artists, the Espada family, but especially Tiburcio, whose work lies dispersed in the island’s south-west area. Many of the works attributed to their gouge are usually religious images over one meter tall. Particular mention should be made of the chivalry official and master sculptor José Valentín Sánchez, born in Havana in 1771, who in 1812 and at the request of the first Puerto Rican bishop, Alejo Arizmendi, finishes a carving of the Cristo de la Buena Muerte. During his nearly 16-year stay in San Juan, Valetín’s workshop is extremely active and sets up a sculpture school, with provisional authorization, that several poor-class apprentices frequent. He was granted the license in 1827. Perhaps the second sculptor that works in San Juan by 1820, according to a record of Pedro Tomás de Córdoba, is a pupil from Valentín Sánchez's shop. It won't be until the arrival of the generations that work from around 1940 on, that we will find a sculptural boom, next to the popular imagery. The facilities offered by the Puerto Rican Culture Institute will give the necessary push to make it possible to train young professionals of the size of Rafael López del Campo (1936) and Tomás Batista. Among the teachers of later generations we have Luisa Géigel de Gandia. We remember here her bronze sculpture of the Virgin of Providence in the parochial church of Bayamón, and Maternidad, carved in black stone; both works with a plastic sense of rigorous modernity. José Buscaglia Gullermety (1938) trained in Enrique Manjo's shops, guided his artistic efforts toward monument sculpture, although he had also made numerous portraits. Among these stand out both the last one made of the poet Robert Frost while still alive –which is conserved in the National Portrait Gallery—and the last few made of Pablo Casals, whose originals are kept by the same Foundation. John Valois does metal sculpture, and has experimented with several techniques that include welding and beating. Rafael Ferrer has been identified with radical avant-garde artists in sculpture, both for his good sculptures and for his ingenuity to create plastic circumstances, as well as for the neo-humanistic means that he bases his work on. George Warreck , who just like Valois is a old experimenter in metal techniques, although his best work is a collection of wood carvings in which he maximizes the stylization of natural forms, into which he induces the material itself, particularly when it shows beautiful exuberance, like the guaiacum. We have other sculptors like Alfredo Lozano, consecrated and international renowned; Margarita Basó, Alberto Vadi, and the young contemporaries of today that also deserve separate consideration. But also many are the very young ones that are devoted actively to the study of sculpture inside and outside Puerto Rico.
