Sketch for "The Discoverer" Fresco, Assembly Chamber, State Capitol, Albany, New York 1878

Curator: This is a sketch by William Morris, a preparatory study for his fresco "The Discoverer," intended for the New York State Capitol. It is currently housed at Harvard Art Museums. Editor: The immediate impression? Ethereal, almost dreamlike. The charcoal seems to float on the paper, suggesting a narrative emerging from mist. Curator: Absolutely. And Morris, as a designer deeply rooted in craft, would have been intensely aware of the physical realities of fresco—the labor of preparing the wall, the properties of the lime plaster… Editor: I wonder if he saw the irony? Commissioned to depict discovery, yet entrenched in the very physical processes that ground us. Fresco, in a way, is the antithesis of the intangible "discovery." Curator: Perhaps. Or maybe he found beauty in that tension. A grand ideal rendered through human effort, isn't that what art is all about? Editor: It makes you think about the act of creating, the labor involved, the social context—all overshadowed by the final "artistic" product. Curator: It does make you pause, doesn't it?