At the end of the XVth century the betrothal portrait transforms in the double portrait to commemorate the marriage. Technically it confirms the taste for the realism and detail of the Flemish painting opposite to the inspiration in the forms of the classic Antiquity and the taste for the idealization of the Italian painting.

In the Cinquecento they look for the severe and monumental forms along with the balance and unit by what the figures turn out to be framed in a fund well of scenery or of a stay. The Mannerism introduces the tension granting importance to the symbolic content of the artistic creation by means of surprising effects and asymmetric compositions. The portraits leave the proportion cánones.

In the XVIth Century in the Netherlands they keep on cultivating the taste for realism represents the daily thing with pronounced, the rigor in the drawing and the saturated coloring they get together with the currents manieristas Italian by means of the appearance of symbolic connotations.
In Spain, the influence of the Flemish and Italian painting gives place to the high quality portrait characterized by the meticulous objetivismo of the Flemings, the Venetian wealth of light and color I join a tone of cold distancing and of severe condescension that is typical of any aristocratic European portrait manierista.

In the Baroque the reaction to the affectation of the mannerism and the concept of beauty of the Renaissance arises in Italy with the radical Caravaggio naturalism, but it will be interpreted in a different way in every country.

While in Flanders a pompous and solemn character preserves the portrait, giving it designs first of all of the high social position of the painted the portrait one as in the French court of Luis XIII and Luis XIV, in Holland the clash with Spain and the new political organization they grant to the portrait a tone of intimacy, abstinence and realism and the corporate portrait appears.

In Spain, the called Century of Gold, he gathers the Caravaggio influence and captures the spirit of the Counter-Reformation but figures are his principal contribution as Velázquez that goes forward to his time with a more free skill.

In the Rococo France happens to Italy in his governing role in artistic matter and the affectation of the palatial life and of the court ambiences they turn into the ambiences that surround the painted the portrait ones. The cake does his appearance allowing effects of agility and suggestion.

In England the portrait offers different slopes: the satirical (Hogarth), the rococo (Gainsborough) and the classical one and academician (Reynolds) who announces the neoclassicism and re-arising from the taste for the classic Antiquity in the painted the portrait types, his robes, the funds....

The portrait with ends propagándísticos reaches his top in France, first to the service of the Revolution and later to that of Napoleón.
In Spain with the new dynasty Borbón in Spain they change the tastes and artistic activities, it provokes the arrival of French artists first and then Italians to the service of the Court. Logically they influence the painters out of the palatial circle introducing the new tastes. Francisco de Goya and Bright it stands out for his rebellious character like camera painter, painting the portrait of the psychology of the most important personages of the Court with a big honesty, to the nobility and the gentry without stopping cultivating the satirical and critical portrait of the social abuses that the people was suffering.

The Romanticism arises to the service of the bourgeoisie and it is opposed to the coldness of the classicism. On one hand, it cites as an example the medieval world and the Gothic style to claim the importance of the expression of the feelings and fantastic worlds of the artists. The portrait allows to express the melancholy, the solitude or the nostalgia what connects with the painting simbolista while the representation of the tragedy will give place to the French Realism. It is the most profitable genre for the romantic painters.