Porträt eines jungen Mannes 

Hans Burgkmair drew this portrait of a young man using red chalk. Burgkmair, living between 1473 and 1531, was an important figure in the German Renaissance, a period of immense social and religious transformation. During this time, portraiture gained popularity as a way to capture individual identity and status, a departure from more generalized depictions of people in earlier religious art. This portrait gives us a personal glimpse into the life of a young man during the Renaissance. His clothes suggest that he is not a member of the nobility, but rather a tradesman, or merchant. The soft lines of the chalk lend themselves to a certain intimacy, allowing us to see the individual humanity of the sitter. What does it mean to see this young man, his ambitions and dreams frozen in time? How might our understanding of history shift if we considered such lives more often?