Art Scents - Exploring the Aesthetics of Smell and the Olfactory Arts

Although the arts of incense and perfume making are among the oldest of human cultural practices, it is only in the last two decades that the use of odors in the creation of art has begun to attract attention under the rubrics of 'olfactory art' or 'scent art.' Contemporary olfactory art ranges from gallery and museum installations and the use of scents in music, film, and drama, to the ambient scenting of stores and the use of scents in cuisine. All these practices raise aesthetic and ethical issues, but there is a long-standing philosophical tradition, most notably articulated in the work of Kant and Hegel, which argues that the sense of smell lacks the cognitive capacity to be a vehicle for either serious art or reflective aesthetic experience. This neglect and denigration of the aesthetic potential of smell was further reinforced by Darwin's and Freud's views of the human sense of smell as a near useless evolutionary vestige. Smell has thus been widely neglected within the philosophy of art. Larry Shiner's wide-ranging book counters this tendency, aiming to reinvigorate an interest in smell as an aesthetic experience. He begins by countering the classic arguments against the aesthetic potential of smell with both philosophical arguments and evidence from neuroscience, psychology, anthropology, history, linguistics, and literature. He then draws on this empirical evidence to explore the range of aesthetic issues that arise in each of the major areas of the olfactory arts, whether those issues arise from the use of scents with theater and music, sculpture and installation, architecture and urban design, or avant-garde cuisine. Shiner gives special attention to the art status of perfumes and to the ethical issues that arise from scenting the body, the ambient scenting of buildings, and the use of scents in fast food. Shiner's book provides both philosophers and other academic readers with not only a comprehensive overview of the aesthetic issues raised by the emergence of the olfactory arts, but also shows the way forward for further studies of the aesthetics of smell.

List of contents

• Acknowledgements


• Introduction


• Part I. What Can the Nose Know?


• Overview: The Challenge of the Olfactory Arts


• Chapter 1: The Fear of Smell


• Chapter 2: Neuroscience and Psychology of Smell I: What the Nose Can Do


• Chapter 3: Neuroscience and Psychology of Smell II: What the Nose Can't Do


• Chapter 4: Smell, Emotion, and Aesthetics


• Part II. Smell Redeemed: Language, Culture and Memory


• Overview: A Biocultural Approach


• Chapter 5: The Dialectic of Deodorization: Smell in Western History


• Chapter 6: Language, Culture, and Smell


• Chapter 7: Writing Smell


• Chapter 8: Odor, Memory, and Proust


• Part III. Discovering the Olfactory Arts


• Overview: What is Olfactory Art?


• Chapter 9: Toward a Total Work of Art: Smell in Theater, Film, Music


• Chapter 10: Sublime Stenches: Contemporary Olfactory Art


• Chapter 11: Beautiful Fragrances: Is Perfume a Fine Art?


• Chapter 12: Perfume Between Art and Design


• Part IV. The Aesthetics and Ethics of Scenting


• Overview: Varieties of Aesthetic Experience


• Chapter 13: The Meanings and Morality of Scenting the Body


• Chapter 14: Ambient Scenting, Architecture, and the City


• Chapter 15: Enhancing Flavors with Scents in Contemporary Cuisine


• Conclusion


• Bibliography

About the author

Larry Shiner is Professor Emeritus of Philosophy at the University of Illinois, his research focuses on the history of the concept of art, the relation of art to craft and design, the aesthetics of museum architecture, the aesthetics of smell, and the role of literary form in writing history. His writings on those topics include numerous articles in major journals and two books: The Secret Mirror: Literary Form and History in Tocqueville's Recollections (Cornell University Press, 1988) and The Invention of Art: A Cultural History (University of Chicago Press, 2001).

Summary

Although the arts of incense and perfume making are among the oldest of human cultural practices, it is only in the last two decades that the use of odors in the creation of art has begun to attract attention under the rubrics of 'olfactory art' or 'scent art.' Contemporary olfactory art ranges from gallery and museum installations and the use of scents in music, film, and drama, to the ambient scenting of stores and the use of scents in cuisine. All these practices raise aesthetic and ethical issues, but there is a long-standing philosophical tradition, most notably articulated in the work of Kant and Hegel, which argues that the sense of smell lacks the cognitive capacity to be a vehicle for either serious art or reflective aesthetic experience. This neglect and denigration of the aesthetic potential of smell was further reinforced by Darwin's and Freud's views of the human sense of smell as a near useless evolutionary vestige. Smell has thus been widely neglected within the philosophy of art.

Larry Shiner's wide-ranging book counters this tendency, aiming to reinvigorate an interest in smell as an aesthetic experience. He begins by countering the classic arguments against the aesthetic potential of smell with both philosophical arguments and evidence from neuroscience, psychology, anthropology, history, linguistics, and literature. He then draws on this empirical evidence to explore the range of aesthetic issues that arise in each of the major areas of the olfactory arts, whether those issues arise from the use of scents with theater and music, sculpture and installation, architecture and urban design, or avant-garde cuisine. Shiner gives special attention to the art status of perfumes and to the ethical issues that arise from scenting the body, the ambient scenting of buildings, and the use of scents in fast food. Shiner's book provides both philosophers and other academic readers with not only a comprehensive overview of the aesthetic issues raised by the emergence of the olfactory arts, but also shows the way forward for further studies of the aesthetics of smell.

Additional text

Whether or not scent is capable of profundity, Shiner makes an excellent case that scent at least merits attention as a vehicle for aesthetic meaning...Highly recommended.

Product details

• Authors: Larry Shiner, Larry (Professor Emeritus of Philosophy Shiner, Shiner Larry
• Publisher: Oxford University Press
• Languages: English
• Product format: Hardback
• Released: 31.05.2020
• EAN: 9780190089818
• ISBN: 978-0-19-008981-8
• No. of pages: 372
• Series: Thinking Art
• Subjects: Humanities, art, music > Art > General, dictionaries; Non-fiction book > Philosophy, religion > Philosophy: general, reference works; Theory of art, PHILOSOPHY / Ethics & Moral Philosophy, PHILOSOPHY / Aesthetics, ART / Criticism & Theory, PSYCHOLOGY / Cognitive Psychology & Cognition, Ethics & moral philosophy, Cognition & cognitive psychology, Philosophy: aesthetics, Ethics and moral philosophy, Cognition and cognitive psychology