In 1801 Jean Nicolas Louis Durand published a fundamental book for the architectural thinking that shaped our world for the next century - his work was actually a collection of drawings. They represented the Models, the best examples of old and modern buildings, from basic elements to the spatial complex configuration - doors, temples, churches, etc. It was a system of design using simple modular elements combined after several rules. The model, the element and the rule is still today an important tool with endless possibilities from graphic design to architecture and it is highly efficient. That's how a software works, from Photoshop to Archicad, but keep in mind that the machine is just a tool and creative thinking is different (the Odorshop is another story)
A new original fragrance, like any other type of art work, rewrites / rearranges the olfactory space. It represents both a new shape or olfactory configuration and a new meaning given to its elements. The rose in a perfume like Chanel No5 (but it can be Paris or Kenzo Flower, too) is not just the rose oil/absolute, but a new rose representing a fraction of the "ideal rose" and most important of all, a rose specific to No5. Here we have 2 main concepts inherent to any artwork - the intention and the result as it is perceived by a different person. We have the rose (or rosy note) as it was intended by Ernest Beaux and clearly expressed by the formula, and the rose that we can "extract" or cut from the original perfume. For this reason I could show you 10 roses from 1900 to 2000 like the lines in fashion. Knowing them is as fundamental for a perfumer as fashion history is for a designer. If the audience is aware or not has little value - do you think that an average person today could make the difference between Louis XVI and Louis Philippe styles in decoration?
For this reason we can build a database of accords representing ideas from masterpieces, as Durand did for the buildings of Antiquity to his age. Those ideas are as fundamental as the ingredient alone (read the rose oil or the molecules) and their formula is short and essential. Those ideas, taken from old perfumes (1900's) to modern creations (2000's) can be recombined in an unprecedented way that transcends the aesthetics of a given period. Why not combining the lilac of Olivia Giacobetti with the rose-violet note of Voilette de Madame (Jacques Guerlain) or taking Iris Silver Mist in a 1906 Après l'ondée storm? Putting together ideas that were never in the same place or same time will be the next step in fragrance creation, after the rediscovery of basic ingredients. Beauty in fragrance is universal and timeless and a powerful idea transcends time, space and ideology. Ideas are here, the perfumer has to "extract" the best "artistic essence" like the chemists did for the natural ingredients. Understanding the beauty of Paris (YSL) is quite different than duplicates the perfume because it sells. This is the fragile line between ART and non-Art, between work/replica/kitsch.
Bringing in the same "place" a 1920's rose and a 2010's jasmine is not enough. When you do not smell rose near jasmine and their link but something else, greater and more powerful you are in the kingdom of shapes - an aesthetic configuration, a fundamental pattern, a structure. And there are many from Après l'ondée to Terre d'Hermès! Understanding the olfactory shape of a perfume is similar to the process of understanding the composition of a painting - you slice it until you find its fundamental truth and uniqueness.
Without entering too much technical details, this is actually a method of composition / creation where artistic experiment, knowledge and theory are fundamental.
All truths may be expressed as appropriate combinations of concepts, which can in turn be decomposed into simple ideas, rendering the analysis much easier - that's Leibniz in 1666 in Dissertatio de arte combinatoria.
The artistic experiment in fragrance creation is the process of examining a form, material or process in a methodical yet open-ended way. To perform a fragrance experiment is to isolate elements of an operation limiting some variables in order to better study others. An experiment asks a question or tests an aesthetic hypothesis whose answer is not known in advance. And what is more exciting than exploring the uncharted territories of the scent map!
The artistic experiment in fragrance creation is the process of examining a form, material or process in a methodical yet open-ended way. To perform a fragrance experiment is to isolate elements of an operation limiting some variables in order to better study others. An experiment asks a question or tests an aesthetic hypothesis whose answer is not known in advance. And what is more exciting than exploring the uncharted territories of the scent map!
New bones, new structures, new aesthetic theories - that's the future of the 8th ART and this art belongs to creators and not to brands.
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Fragrance is the 8th Art - Octavian Coifan - Le Parfum est le 8ème Art
