Portrait of the Danish King Christian II
Michiel Sittow
1514-1515
What did Christian II look like? Many portraits of him have survived, and they are very different from each other. It can be difficult to accept that the model is allegedly the same person in all the paintings. The only recurring feature is the beard. The Renaissance saw a growing interest in human beings as individuals and in their worldly, material aspects. Artists began to see each individual person, reproducing what they saw by means of illusionistic effects. Today, we think that the portraits begin to look like their models.
SMK – National Gallery of Denmark, Copenhagen · Image: SMK – National Gallery of Denmark, Public domain · Text: SMK – National Gallery of Denmark (text: Hanne Kolind Poulsen) (adapted), CC0