Professor of Divinity Andreas Christian Krog 1854

C.A. Jensen painted this oil on canvas portrait of Professor Andreas Christian Krog in Denmark sometime in the first half of the 19th century. Here, a man of the church is rendered with a directness that departs from idealized depictions. The black coat and white clerical collar are symbols of Krog’s position, but Jensen’s soft brushstrokes and the sitter’s gentle expression humanize him. Denmark in the 1800s was a society wrestling with questions of faith and reason, caught between traditional religious views and the Enlightenment’s emphasis on individual thought. We know that Jensen also painted portraits of Grundtvigians, members of a Danish religious and cultural movement. To understand this work fully, we can look at archival records of the University of Copenhagen, where Krog taught. We can explore the theological debates of the time and Jensen’s broader body of work. This painting invites us to reflect on how individual identity is shaped by social role, and how artists participate in the construction of that identity.