Estetica unui parfum

Larry Shiner

Art Scents
Exploring the Aesthetics of Smell and the Olfactory Arts

Oxford University Press, New York, 2020

 

 

 

...we may note that because perfumes are made up of substances possessing differing volatilities, they have not only a formal structure, but also a temporal sequence. Moreover, perfumers generate the structure of a perfume in much the same way that artists in other media create their works. Creating a perfume is not simply a matter of blending a set of odorous substances, but of imagining a complex form, a composition involving a variety of odor molecules called “notes,” differing in quality and intensity as well as in volatility. Some notes will actually be part of preconstructed harmonious units called “accords.” Accords are the memorable aesthetic gestalts that form the core of a perfume, giving it an underlying identity.

(p. 212)

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...there is an even more specific parallel between perfume design and music composition than the superficial similarities suggested by terms like “composition,” “note,” “accord” or “melody.” The perfumers’ goal is not a single olfactory artifact, but a formula that can be reproduced, much as the composer of a musical work typically does not create a single sound artifact but a score. Here we have an olfactory version of what philosophers of music call the type/token problem. Is the work of art the type that is, the musical score or perfume formula, or is the work of art the token, the tones of this particular performance or the odors of this perfume? There are similar type/token parallels in standard fashion or product design. Although a fashion or product designer might occasionally make her own prototype, or even produce small production runs, the usual aim of a designer is to produce a pattern or set of coordinates that will be turned into multiple instances by others. The sleek modernist chair that we admire in the Museum of Modern Art in New York or in the Victoria and Albert in London is a token of the design created by Marcel Breuer, just as the vapor from a bottle of Trésor that we test at a perfume counter is a token of the formula created by Sophia Grosjman.

(p. 214)