The effects of the dictates of the Counter-Reformation were not uniformly felt throughout Europe and beyond, but were interpreted distinctly in different cultural and artistic contexts. Political events and contamination between different geographic areas were key to the varied stylistic evolution of works of art.
From the vast range of works emerges an obviously uniform effort to spread and promote Catholicism.
The Christian absorption and transformation of iconographic elements belonging to remote cultures is particularly interesting, as documented for example by the Portuguese Church in missionary lands, principally by the Jesuit Order.