Angus Trum­ble, cura­tor of paint­ings and sculp­ture at the Yale Cen­ter for British Art, asks, why is great per­fume not taken more seriously?

The par­al­lels between what ought to be more prop­erly regarded as sis­ter arts are unde­ni­able. Artists and colour­men com­bine nat­ural and, these days, syn­thetic pig­ments with media such as oils and resins, much as the per­fumer care­fully for­mu­lates nat­ural and syn­thetic chem­i­cal com­pounds. The Old Mas­ters deployed the first across the colour spec­trum, and applied lay­ers on a deter­min­ing ground and var­i­ous kinds of under-painting, slowly build­ing up to the sur­face through wet on wet, or at times wet on dry, com­plet­ing their work with thin glazes on top. […] So, too, tal­ented “noses” exper­i­ment with com­plex con­fig­u­ra­tions of olfac­tory ele­ments and pro­duce in sym­phonic com­bi­na­tion many small sen­sa­tions, at times dis­cor­dant, sweet, bit­ter, melan­choly, or happy as the case may be.