Wall painting (detail), Church of the monastery Lesnovo, Kratovo, ca. 1347-8. The best preserved and most famous picture of Dusan, in the endowment of his key nobleman, Despot Jovan Oliver. While probably rooted in his actual features, Dusan's appearance here is largely idealized. With an emphasis on the sublime befitting the newly crowned Emperor of the Serbs and Greeks (Romans), he raises his eyes upward apparently seeking divine guidance, in a manner remincent of Constantine the Great many centuries earlier. Wall painting (detail), Decani monastery, 1335-1350. This strong, if somewhat damaged, lifetime portrait delivers a hint of the powerful ruler at his prime, while lacking the divine overtones of the previous work. Wall painting (detail), Decani monastery, 1340. In the context of a composition of praising the Virgin and flanked by his immediate family (wife and child), Dusan is rendered with a milder, more human and tender expression. "The Nemanjic family tree", wall painting (detail), Decani monastery, ca. 1345. Here, Dusan is shown as the current ruler heading the elaborate dynastic family tree, probably the nicest of several of its kind. "The Crowning of Emperor Dusan" (detail), by Paja Jovanovic, oil, 1931, National Museum, Belgrade. This monumental composition was originally sketched in 1899, by the most famous painter of the academic realism genre and Serbian historical themes. Dusan's features and to some extent iconography appear rather removed from those shown in paintings by his contemporaries, and are more in function of the overall majestic impression of this masterpiece. Author: Radmilo Bozinovic rasha@serbianunity.net