Bernini - flamboyant, opulent, rich, illusions, perspective, movement, structure, dramatic decoration, spectacular, contorsion;
Fragrance - operatic formulae, complexity and intricate shape, morphing elements, decoration and amazing structure;
Structure
1. skeleton (main accord from top to bottom), theme 1 (middle to bottom), accents - contrasts (top and middle), decoration (on top).
2. Top, Middle 1 and middle 2, Bottom 1 and Bottom 2
Middle theme- morphing flowers (they can change one into another like rose-hyacinth-muguet or jasmine-honeysuckle-orange flower)
Accords based on numeric proportion
The fragrance unveils ideas after ideas - every stage of evaporation is a surprise
Virtuosity - a small quotation from a known perfume is put somewhere (an illusion made from few elements that evoke for a short period of time another perfume)
Complexity - small shades of almost "invisible" notes that enrich in the same manner as the less than 0,1% molecules of a natural absolute.
Examples:
Shocking - 3 perfumes in one but here the dominant heart note, rose-lily of the valley is in tension with a continuous animalic shade, the warm and the green, the flower and the animal are represented in a shocking raccourci that goes deep into the patchouli.
Ma Griffe - 3 perfumes in one for the original extrait (not the modern soup) each one unveiling after the other in a marvel of more than 3 days of perfume evolution. A marvel in time and perspective.
Youth Dew - from aldehydes to balsams, from small green accents to amber, almost the entire spectrum gravitates around 3 flower accords where the tension between "liquidambar", spices and top notes is melt in honey.
Amarige - in the enormous dome represented by more than 60% of Hedione + a salycilate, Dominique Ropion contrasted the freshness of the green gardenia with the deepest sandalwood note with impressive accents from the small green violet top to the fruit sec note.
Euphoria - all previous gourmand perfumes are stored inside this marvel of complexity - from Angel to Miss Dior Cherie, all the fruits and sweets are arranged in a palace of patchouli and light flowers.
Perfumers:
Jean Carles is the greatest architect of all baroque perfumes. Fragrance for him is like a great villa where the proportion is quintessential. He is like an admiral of all accords based on abstraction. If Italian artists believed in the Divine Proportion, Jean Carles believed in proportion and method. He wrote fragrances as Italian painters draw perspective - based on geometry and numbers - with base notes, modifiers, top and accessory ingredients - everything in precise order.
If Pierre Bourdon had to live in the 17th century he would have designed Versailles. He is a master of great spaces planned on global size and his baroque "perspective" effects in perfumes are not about small accords and shades. In Cool Water he designed the great axe from dihydromircenol to ambroxan with the great center called damascone and 2 extremes - AAG and evernyl - placing around figurative notes in a symmetrical approach. In Kouros he draws an axe between fougere and animalis and puts an aldehyde between. Is it Versailles or Vaux le Vicomte for this urban planner in the fragrant microcosm?
Dominique Ropion is a narrative baroque that speaks less architectural and more colorful as any great Italian painter. When the opera has only one act it's full of shades as it is the case for Une fleur de cassie while in other fragrances he is deep like Caravaggio (Vetiver). He paints in spherical perspective an entire universe - Amarige on hedione+benzyl salycilate, Aimez moi - on ionone and iralia while in Alien cashmeran is the universal dome were he places the accords.
Jean Guichard is totally different. He is the great master of huge paintings like those in Louvre by Rubens. Even the smallest projects are big adventures with intricate notes. Take Eau d'Eden, the light floral marine that is nothing like all transparent fragrances from the 90's. The other Cacharel and Jar perfumes are obvious with their carnal opulence. To switch the century I would say that he is like Veronese.
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Fragrance is the 8th Art - Octavian Coifan - Le Parfum est le 8ème Art
