Bismark Brown 

Curator: At the Harvard Art Museums, we have a rather unusual piece: a jar labeled "Bismark Brown," manufactured by Wadsworth, Howland & Co. Editor: It’s oddly…calm. Almost scientific. The color chart beside the jar makes me think of a painter’s studio, but very clinical. Curator: Indeed. The lack of an artist’s hand complicates its categorization as "art," challenging traditional notions of artistic creation and authorship. Editor: But that's the point, isn't it? Who decides what’s worth preserving, what gets elevated? It is a testament to industry, how the tools of creation become relics themselves. Curator: Precisely. And it encourages us to look beyond the finished masterpiece to consider the materiality of art, the very substances from which art is made. Editor: Right, it is a raw ingredient in a silent, still-life portrait. It makes you wonder what artworks this pigment helped bring into being, doesn't it?