The Fishermans Wooing from the Pears Annual Christmas 

Eugene de Blaas made “The Fisherman's Wooing” as an illustration for Pears Annual Christmas, using oil paint on canvas. Blaas was known for paintings of Venetian life, and here he creates a scene of courtship. But it’s really the textures that grab your attention. See how the artist contrasts the rough, weathered stone with the soft fabrics of the figures' clothing, carefully described using the oil paint medium? Look closely, and you can see the distinctive weave and weight of each material, from the fisherman’s sturdy trousers, to the fine material of the girl’s dress. This is a genre painting, really, made for popular consumption. It’s not high art so much as skilled illustration, intended for mass circulation. But Blaas does bring a real attention to the social realities of labor, and you could say that by rendering them so precisely, he elevates these humble materials.