Painted canvas fragment  c. 20th century

Editor: This is Barnett Newman's *Painted canvas fragment*. It's a small, raw piece of painted canvas at the Harvard Art Museums. It feels like a relic, like a discarded test of color. What do you make of it? Curator: It's fascinating to consider this fragment within the context of Newman's larger works and the broader Abstract Expressionist movement. How does presenting this incomplete canvas change our perception of Newman’s artistic process and the art world's valuation of "finished" versus "unfinished" art? Editor: That's a great point. I hadn’t considered how its incompleteness challenges those notions. Curator: Exactly. The rawness and small size are a powerful statement about art’s accessibility versus its perceived grandiosity, and forces us to look at it beyond just the visual.