Young peasants on their way to a dance, Westerwald

With a confident air, three young men dressed in matching suits paused to have their portrait taken. Photographer August Sander took their picture just prior to the onset of World War I for his project People of the Twentieth Century, an unfinished visual catalogue of the German people. Though titled Three Farmers on Their Way to a Dance, these men, dressed in attire that elevated their everyday appearance, actually worked in a mine. Soon after Sander took this photograph, they were sent off to war. Two survived with injuries but one (pictured in the center) was killed.

This knowledge, in retrospect, prompts us to consider this image differently. Sander unwittingly recorded their innocence of the fate that awaited them.