DUESSELDORF, Germany (AP) — Have you ever wondered what war smells like? Or maybe you think about the smell of love, the smell of medieval Paris, or the sacred. scent Of religion?
New exhibition in Germany allows visitors to discover the unknown world of smells Sniff 81 different fragrances across 37 different galleries.
The show “The Secret Power of Scent”, which opens to the public on Wednesday at Kunstpalast Museum in the western city of Düsseldorf, combines fragrance and art to take visitors on a journey through more than 1,000 years of cultural history.
“This exhibition is an experiment, an invitation for the audience to discover the history of scent with their noses,” said Felix Kremer, director of the museum.
The exhibition is presented in chronological order, from medieval religious artifacts to 21st century contemporary art. The various galleries are equipped with scent monuments, atomizers and diffusers to create connections between the art and scents of specific eras and cultural backgrounds.
Waves of myrrh float through dark galleries of Christian wood carvings depicting various scenes from the Bible. The program explains that not only Christianity but also Judaism and Islam used myrrh as a symbol of prayer and purification.
scent evokes direct emotional response Stronger than any other sense. So it’s surprising now that visitors can almost recoil in horror at the push of a button in an exhibit depicting war. World War I. The scent emitted by the diffuser is a mixture of the pungent smell of gunpowder and the metallic smell of blood and sulfur.
“Anyone who has experienced war, a conventional war, will hate war, because here you can really smell the brutality of war,” said Robert Müller-Grünow, curator of the show and a leading expert in the field of scent and scent technology.
“This is the first exhibition in the world to bring scent into a museum in this form, format and scale,” he said.
At the other end of the fragrance spectrum is the Venus and Adonis painting of two lovers, painted in 1610 by Flemish artist Peter Paul Rubens.
“This room is all about passion and emotion,” said Müller Grünau, adding that the scent here is dominated by roses and civet. The scent of civet was considered erotic in the 17th century, but today’s visitors turn up their noses in disgust.
Certain smells were also associated with different eras of history, and pressing a button to release the stench of medieval Paris left some visitors suffocating as they inhaled the mixture of canals, mold, and unwashed bodies.
Meanwhile, a 1920s-themed gallery features Gerd Wollheim’s 1924 oil painting “Farewell from Düsseldorf.” The work celebrates the liberation of women at the time, who began wearing bold lipstick, bobbing their hair, and smoking cigarettes in public. The room is filled with uplifting aromas of tobacco, vanilla, and leather. This mixture is reminiscent of early famous fragrances, such as the historic Tabac Blonde, launched in 1919 by fragrance house Caron.
Moving on to contemporary art, the museum has a more contemporary flavor between works such as; andy warholYves Klein or Gunter Ueckerreminding visitors of world-famous brands such as: coca cola Or German airline Eurowings, which leaves its cabin with a pleasant and relaxing scent as passengers board.
In addition to the application of scent in marketing, the museum also exhibits the very modern role of scent, such as the scent molecule “Iso-E Super.” This is not a type of gasoline, but a dazzling scent that is thought to make the wearer more attractive.
“It smells like cedarwood, but it also has a very velvety, skin-like scent,” the curator said. “It smells very human, warm, and welcoming.”
Visitor Kirsten Gnos said the 81 scents introduced a whole new world to visitors as they strolled and sniffed around the show, which runs until March 8.
“I’ve visited the collection here before, but this time it’s completely new with photos and period-appropriate scents,” she said. “It’s exciting to combine art and scent.”
