Philosophy
The Aesthetics of Scent and the Philosophy of Olfactory Art
Quick fact
The philosopher Søren Kierkegaard, in his 'Diary of a Seducer', described the 'odor' as a medium that could produce 'an instant of pleasure,' but it wasn't until the late 20th century that artists like Sissel Tolaas began creating explicitly 'olfactory installations' in galleries, challenging the art world to accept a medium that cannot be seen or hung on a wall.
Why this is interesting
You might have heard of a painting or a symphony, but what about a 'scent artwork'? How can something that vanishes in seconds be considered art, and what does it mean for the philosophy of beauty?
Read the full explanation
Understanding The Aesthetics of Scent and the Philosophy of Olfactory Art
Imagine you're walking through an art gallery. You see paintings, sculptures, perhaps a video installation. But what if the artwork were a scent—an invisible presence that you breathed in and that faded away? That is the idea behind olfactory art. To understand its aesthetics, we have to first think about how we experience smells. Unlike a picture, which we can look at for a long time, a smell is transient and always changing. It is tied to memory and emotion in a way that visual images often are not. But it also lacks a clear structure; you cannot point to a 'scent note' and say, 'that is the theme.' This is why some have thought that scent cannot be a true art form—it seems too subjective and fleeting. Yet, that very fleetingness might be its artistic power, challenging us to reconsider what we value in art.
A deeper explanation
Historically, Western aesthetics, from Plato to Kant, privileged the 'higher' senses of sight and hearing because they seemed to offer objective, shareable experiences and the basis for rational judgment. Smell, along with taste and touch, was dismissed as 'lower' and too subjective, tied to bodily pleasure or revulsion rather than intellectual contemplation. This hierarchy shaped the definition of art as something primarily visual or literary. The emergence of olfactory art in the late 20th century directly contests this legacy. Artists like Sissel Tolaas and the 'smell artist' Klaus Riede have used synthetic and natural scents to create installations that provoke memory, discomfort, or aesthetic delight. These works force us to ask: if a fragrance can be composed with the same care as a musical score or a poem, why should it not be considered art? The philosophy of olfactory art thus becomes a critical reflection on the very structure of Western aesthetics, its biases, and its potential for expansion. Moreover, the philosophical debate hinges on whether aesthetic judgment requires a 'stable' object that can be identified and analyzed, something scent seems to lack. Yet, as these artists show, the medium's ephemerality can be a strength, not a weakness, offering a unique form of engagement with the present moment.