Portrait of a girl in a green dress 

Hans Thoma painted this portrait in oil on canvas. If you look closely at the weave of the canvas, you can tell that it's been primed to provide a smooth surface for the paint, which allowed Thoma to build up thin layers of color, especially in the girl's face. The way the light falls across her skin and dress shows the artist's careful observation and the way he painstakingly captured different textures and colors. The materiality here is connected to social class: Oil paints and canvas were relatively expensive, so portraiture was affordable for only a limited section of society. And even though the girl's dress is rather simple, its color and the overall scene reflects the labor involved in crafting clothing and accessories. When we focus on the materials and techniques used in artworks like this, it helps us to appreciate not only the artist's skill, but also the broader cultural and economic context in which the work was made.