Last modified on Sun 28 Feb 2021 04.28 EST
Art is for the eyes, but what about the nose? Can it rouse our olfactory senses? I smell the musty fug of a secondhand bookshop when I look at the paintings of Anselm Kiefer. A friend with more pronounced synaesthesia gets the scent of stewed apples in front of a Manet. A fellow critic swore he detected the tang of urine drifting off one of Tracey Emin’s appliqued blankets, but the piece was all about bedwetting so perhaps the suggestion was already there. Still there are ways in which art may appeal to the nose.
Abraham Mignon,
The Nature as a Symbol of Vanitas, c. 1665-79
I like flowers all right, I suppose. I like having them around, I like how they smell. I like their delicate skins, their manner of shedding yellow everywhere in a fine powder. I try to stop on the street, when I can, to bend down and look directly into their faces. I have mild flower preferences, in a bodega-selection way: ranunculus over chrysanthemums, peonies over roses, lilies over hydrangeas. Having lived in New York City my entire adult life, bodega-flower choice has been more or less the extent of the relationship.