The young man has lowered his head, but his gaze under his eyebrows is slightly slanted upwards. He appears thoughtful, intense, and at the same time determined — as though depicted in a concentrated moment of decision. Feuerbach’s youthful self-portrait hints at what this artist was to become: an intellectually ambitious man whose romantic yearning for ideality and greatness often led him to seek out classical, ancient models and literary as well as philosophical subject matter.