Spanish saint Dominic de Guzmán (1170-1221) founded the Dominican Order, which became one of the most powerful and influential religious groups in Catholic Europe, partially as a result of its defense of orthodoxy through the Inquisition, which was led by Dominican prelates. Claudio Coello made five paintings for their convent of El Rosario in Madrid, one of which is presented here. They were probably painted in the mid 1670s, when the painter was relatively young but had already made a place for himself on the art scene in Madrid. His reputation stemmed from his participation in important decorative projects at churches and convents in and around that city, and such singular works as, for example, The Triumph of Saint Augustine (1664) (Museo del Prado, P664). All of these works reveale his technical skill and his unusual mastery of drawing, as well as the originality and compositional daring that made him one of the great representatives of the mature Baroque in Madrid.

All of these qualities are present in St. Dominic de Guzmán, a very effective painting in the esthetic sense and also very original- it bears no resemblance to customary depictions of Saint Dominic. The saint is accompanied by numerous allusions to his identity -almost too many, in fact- including the Dominican cross, the habit of his order, the rosary at his waist, a lily, the book in his right hand, an orb and a dog with a candle at his feet. But while none of this is new, the figure’s presentation is truly innovative, and it is resolved in an extraordinarily theatrical manner.

The saint appears on a pedestal, which suggests the idea of sculpture. But that suggestion is ambiguous, as both the saint’s facial expression and posture, and the aliveness that Claudio Coello manages to transmit through his use of color, contradict the idea of a dead and unchanging statue. This ambiguity also involves the space around the saint: an open red curtain casts the scene as an apparition and unveiling. The curtain opens onto a setting that is very powerful from a formal standpoint, but equally ambiguous in its degree of verisimilitude. Four large columns bear composite capitals, but rather than delimiting the space, they open to the sky. This makes allows Coello to create a dramatic lighting whose contrasts bring an extraordinary sense of power to the figure of the saint in the foreground. And this is further reinforced by the notably low viewpoint, which adds a sense of monumentality. With its combination of painting, sculpture, architecture and staging, this work marks a high point in the Baroque aspiration to combine the arts, not as entertaining artifice, but rather as a means of more efficiently conveying the presence of the saint’s image to the viewer.

This painting entered the Museo del Prado from the former Museo de la Trinidad, which had received works from many Castilian convents after they were secularized in 1835.

El Prado en el Hermitage, Museo Estatal del Hermitage: Museo del Prado, 2011, p.154-155