Fauvism - the crude color of a fragrance

Fauvism as an art movement involved the use of deep color and focused on light and the moment simplifying lines, whist making the subject easy to read, and brightened the colors. The paintings featured flat patterns and anti-naturalism. Matisse was seen as a leader of the movement. Other great Fauve were Derain and Dufy, the later known also for the prints he created for Paul Poiret.

Applying fauvism style in perfumery I suggest the following ideas:
- singular notes with a definite character
- emphasis on contrast and not on similarities
- powerful ingredients
- overdose technique
- unusual binomes - trinomes
- equilibrium gained by compensation and little by rounding off
- short formula

When speaking of fauvism I am always thinking of Germaine Cellier. :)

Experiment with the previous cassie note
- the orange blossom is a powerful Schiff base with little other undertones
- sweet, crude, jasmine note with no wax or tuberose secondary note
- fine methyl ionone note
- coarse, almost pungent green character (undecatriene, neofolione )
- spicy aldehydic note

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Fragrance is the 8th Art - Octavian Coifan - Le Parfum est le 8ème Art

Deconstruction as a creation technique

Deconstructivism, or Deconstruction, is an approach to building design which attempts to view architecture in bits and pieces. First it's a strategy of critical analysis. Its major concepts are fragmentation, non Euclidian geometry, dissolving the polarity between structure and envelope and finally the reconstruction process (non linear) following new rules. The result of this design style is about unpredictability and a controlled chaos. As a design concept it one might see it like a fragmentation of the form followed by a re-creation following new principles.
I thought of it as a possible creative perfumery technique as follows:

- take one smell or fragrance idea
- decompose it into the main "facets"
- switch the individual facet with a new one, similar but not derivative
- recreate the fragrant accord rebalancing the ingredients
- change the importance of certain elements (i.e. a base note "exploding" in the top)

Finally you have the mental impression of a particular scent and not its reproduction.

Example

Cassie type

- orange blossom complex
- sweet floral complex with a jasmine undertone
- powder complex type - violet-orchid
- green note type violet leaf
- spicy accent: cumin


Cassie "deconstructed"

- an unusual Schiff base
- jasmin Sambac in a nondescript banana cream
- metallic cold violet note, the powder note of non iris type
- galbanum or better green bitter with pepper note
- ginger

        

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Fragrance is the 8th Art - Octavian Coifan - Le Parfum est le 8ème Art

Impressionism - the poetry of light

Impressionism was a new vision of world and light at the end of the 19th century. It brought a fresh air and a renewal of the classical painting. Characteristic of impressionist painting are visible brushstrokes, light colors, open composition, emphasis on light in its changing qualities (often accentuating the effects of the passage of time). They did not mix their colors with black in order to obtain darker pigments but mixed it with complementary colors. Also, they emphasized aspects of the play of natural light, including an acute awareness of how colors reflect from object to object.

What should it mean in perfumery? A style totally opposed to minimalism with an emphasis on nuance and variation. When I am thinking of impressionism the fragrance style that came up first is that of Caron - Daltroff. Fleur de rocaille would be the perfect impressionist fragrance.
The main principles of that style of perfumery would be:

- use of similar notes and degradé style
- little contrasts, used more like a contrapunto
- the emphasis is on overall effect rather than upon details
- 4-5 notes accord until individual character disappears
- grisaille
- every singular note is shaded (use of acetals, ester homologue series,
- emphasis on delicacy and subtlety rather than power

Experiment with the cassie note
- the orange flower complex is shaded with acacia notes
- sweet - fresh jasmine note shaded with an entirely plethora of jasmone derivates
- violet - a complex isomer mixture
- green violet note - violet leaf absolute + a series of 5 alkyne carbonates
- cuminic: cuminal + various acetals

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Fragrance is the 8th Art - Octavian Coifan - Le Parfum est le 8ème Art

The "amber" concept vs. the "musk" concept

Thinking of Bachelard "Poetry of Space" and then that of the natural elements, I thought that we may divide the esthetic of perfumery in the 20th century in 2 great concepts - The Amber & The Musk. It's not necessary a division made upon clear olfactive qualities but more, a division made upon principles and use of those 2 components in fragrances.
I gave that name in relation with the properties of the natural products in a composition - the liant and the exaltant.

Thinking of what was written about perfumery technique in the first part of the century, there is a subject that came very often, as if it would have been the principal preoccupation or perfumers - the problem of fixation / "how to fix a fragrance" / how to increase persistence, etc. In fact I think that we have here a similarity with the relation between the paintings of Rembrandt and those of Vermeer - the poetry of dark and the poetry of light.
One captures the shadow emphasizing introspection (amber) while the other captures the light being extrovert.
In extremis the "amber" concept gave the dark oriental perfume, sweet and sensual (and even "dirty" with indole & civet) while the "musk" concept gave the clean - "antiperfumery" style.
So, as the relation between the centrifuge and centripetal force in physics, all depends where you are situated in the constant battle between evaporation / tenacity and the way a perfumer wants you to perceive time - perpetual or ephemeral.

The "Amber"
- great importance given on persistence - "how to fix down a perfume, how to keep the more volatiles not out of ephemeral evaporation"
- the perfume is Cartesian - it parts from one source and develops its themes
- use of balms and sweet resins
- the triple accord amber - opopanax - labdanum
- the use of natural tinctures
- amber tincture or similar synthetic used as a "liant" - harmonizer of composition
- rounding off all notes
- classical hierarchic composition - subordination of notes / accords
Ex.: the classical Chypre note, most of Serge Lutens fragrances, the classical aldehydic note (it has a bright depart and a tender coda), the classical fougere note, Pour un Homme Caron.


The "Musk"
- great importance given on diffusion, expansion, "the breath"
- the perfume is "topological" - seems to expand from every where, it surrounds you
- the presence of musk synthetics and analogues
- the presence of Hedione
- morphing replaces the classic evolution
- the musk note (macrocyclic) used as a "exaltator" of composition
- explosion of notes
- non hierarchic composition - presence of different themes with multiple connections
Ex.: Diorissimo (its like a volcano of flowers, a rain of lily notes falling from everywhere), Eau Sauvage (the breath effect and its wavy, sequential apparition), Tresor (the embracing effect and its diffusion in space), En passant (the new interpretation of a classical theme - lilac).

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Fragrance is the 8th Art - Octavian Coifan - Le Parfum est le 8ème Art