The Particularity of Religious Orders as Reflected in the Art of the Spanish Golden Age. Statement of the Problem

The fact that there were numerous religious orders and confraternities in Spain during the Golden Age is beyond doubt. It was religious orders that commissioned a great number of works of art in Spain in the 16 th ‒17 th centuries. At the same time, the life of the orders themselves was subject to certain historical patterns that are yet to be fully explored. However, there is evidence that mendicant religious orders flourished in the decades following the Council of Trent, i.e. in the second half of the 16 th and the first half of the 17 th century. It was the Franciscan order, as well as those resembling it in their ascetic way of life Hieronymite and Cistercian orders, the Carthusians, Mercedarians and Carmelites that enjoyed the greatest popularity with the powers at that time. However, the comparative method of analysis shows that the second half of the 17 th century witnessed a certain decline in the artistic patronage of these orders, while the Jesuits, Dominicans, and Augustinians started to actively commission works of art. Consequently, the iconography of triumphs, which depicted saints popular with the Augustinians, Dominicans and Jesuits, became widespread, with the works of Claudio Coello, a distinguished painter of the second half of the 17 th century, being a testimony to that. At the same time, the question remains whether shifts in the dominance of orders contributed to a shift in their iconographic preferences or, conversely, iconographic preferences resulted in the dominance of certain orders.