Art Scents

Abstract

Abstract This book offers an overview of the aesthetic and ethical issues raised by the contemporary olfactory arts, which range from gallery and museum sculptures and installations, through the enhancement of theater, film, and music with scents, to the ambient scenting of stores and avant-garde chefs’ use of scents in cuisine. Special attention is given to the aesthetics of perfume and incense and the question of their art status, as well as to the role of scent in the appreciation of nature and gardens. Ethical issues are discussed regarding ambient scenting, perfume wearing, and the use of smells in fast-food marketing. Because of the traditional neglect and denigration of the sense of smell and its aesthetic potential by philosophers from Kant and Hegel to the present, and by Darwin’s and Freud’s view of the human sense of smell as a nearly useless evolutionary vestige, the first parts of the book counter that tradition with both philosophical arguments and evidence from current evolutionary theory, neuroscience, psychology, anthropology, history, linguistics, and literature. Although the focus is on Western olfactory arts, the book draws on non-Western examples throughout. The book is aimed at both philosophers and general readers interested in the arts, and develops positions that should stimulate further discussion.