Portrait of the Danish King Christian II 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. But who do they actually look like? Michael Sittow was an excellent portrait painter. He painted Christian II in a way that convinces us that the king looked exactly like this. Thus, Sittow lived up to his era's ideals stipulating that a portrait must seem compellingly real. Yet, the real task was to satisfy the commissioner's desire to convey a specific message. Here, Christian II wished to com municate that Denmark had a handsome, strong willed king.