Light Red 

Curator: This is "Light Red," manufactured by Winsor & Newton. It's part of the collection at the Harvard Art Museums. It looks like a jar containing pigment. Editor: My first thought is of an alchemist's lab. This isn’t just pigment; it's a bottled idea. The color feels earthy, hinting at transformation. Curator: Right, pigments like this had a huge impact on art's accessibility. Mass production democratized color, shifting away from the elite artisan. Editor: Exactly! It changed the symbolic language. Red, historically associated with power, becomes more widely available, altering its cultural impact. Curator: Yes, but even a seemingly simple jar holds layers of meaning about production, distribution, and how materials shape art history. It's quite profound. Editor: It's more than meets the eye. This mundane object reveals so much about the shifting landscape of art.