Is Jacob Lawrence's Migration series breakfast or art? 

Migration is one of those pieces that really makes it difficult to decide whether to delve into the work, or just take a bite out of it. If you were thinking Jacob Lawrence’s painting doesn’t actually look that scrumptious, you shouldn’t be blamed. You just haven’t developed an eye for omelet paintings yet.

Migration is painted in something called “egg tempera.” Tempera is a Medieval and Renaissance painting technique. For the Martha Stewart recipe, just toss in egg yolks with vinegar, white wine, and pigment. Whisk briefly and paint.

In addition, egg tempera has been found as far back as in ancient Egypt, where it was used to decorate sarcophagi for some hungry mummies, and has been sitting around in those tombs for more than a few millennia. So if you thought Duchamp’s famous toilet piece brought to mind some unpleasant odors, think again—this makes the cut for smelliest art material.

In European churches, they would even mix perfumes like myrrh into egg tempera to mask the pungent odor.

This particular painting from Lawrence’s 60-piece Migration of the Negro series illustrates African-American passengers waiting at a Southern train station for a ride up north. Presumably, the reason you can’t make out any of their faces is because they’ve all turned away from that bad-egg smell.

Then again, maybe they’re turning up their noses at the exclusive New York art scene of the time. With the Migration series, Lawrence became the first African-American artist to be represented by a New York gallery.

Other paintings in the Migration series also use casein tempera, a similar pigment made from milk instead of eggs. All part of a healthy and balanced art meal.