Four hundred years ago , Flemish artists Jan Brueghel the Elder and Peter Paul Rubens used the ocular medium of oil blusher to draw out an olfactory experience . You no longer have to utilize your resource to hire with the smells foreground in their paintingThe Sense of Smell . AsSmithsonianreports , a new exposition at theMuseo Nacional del Pradoin Madrid , Spain , copulate the artwork with 10 actual fragrances cheer by the picture .
The exhibit , titled “ The Essence of a picture : An Olfactory expo , ” is a collaboration between the museum ’s principal conservator of Flemish and Northern European paintings , Alejandro Vergara ; and Gregorio Sola , a senior perfumer at the aroma troupe Puig . To develop the interactive aroma for the show , Sola draw stirring from 10 component in the workplace of art .
The Sense of Smellis part of Brueghel and Rubens ’s seriesThe Five Senses , which also includes house painting lionise touch modality , gustation , raft , and earreach . For their ode to odor , the artists depicted Venus and Cupid lounging among various symbol of scent , such as flowers , distillation vessel , perfumed mitt , a fragrance hound , and a civet . Sola ’s concoction condense parts of the picture into decided fragrances . A whiff of " Fig Tree " call to mind the tree in the painting , while " Gloves " recreates the look of glovesscented with ambergriswith service from a seventeenth - hundred formula .
To experience the odour , visitors to the exhibit must tip on one of the four screens install in the heading . Using the AirParfum engineering developed by Puig , a diffuser releases a puff of the scent . After inhaling a spectrum of smells ranging from orange blossom to civet musk , the guests will be fully immerse in the world the artist envisioned .
“ The Essence of a Painting : An Olfactory Exhibition ” will be exhibit at the Museo Nacional del Prado now through July 3 , 2022 . The projection is the latest object lesson of artists using the mother wit of smell in innovational ways . In 2020 , New York - based cloth clothes designer Pallavi Padukone usedscent - infused textilesto capture the fragrances of her home .
[ h / tSmithsonian ]
