What form of art is perfume?

One of the things that has fascinated me about perfume since I first fell down the rabbit hole is the notion of an associated language.  Most art forms have an attendant vocabulary -- what is this "fade out" (unique to vision + time art), this "ellipsis of time" (shared between motion picture and text, presented differently mechanically, yet leading to the same assumption), this "gesture" (a term heard relating to acting and to visual arts, but which can diverge quite a bit from their overlapping meaning).  When I started paying attention to perfume, and to people who wrote about it, you could almost see the reaching for ways to communicate the olfactory experience.  There was the concrete ("notes,"), the experiential metaphor (the makes me feel like path, which can lead you to some purple prose), the parallel metaphor (trying to equate a perfume with a piece of music, for example).  The parallel metaphor seemed to swim in the same pool of exploration as the attempts to explain what the experience of perfume is.

In 2-D visual art, you have lines and relationships and color and "gesture" and such to communicate a representation.

In prose, you have vocabulary and turn of phrase and arrangement of plot and information you choose to leave in or out, assembled in linear time, to communicate an experience.

In music, you have tonal quality and a choice of pitch scaffolds (scales of various sorts) to hang notes presented in linear time, and a choice of one note or many at any given moment on that line, and a choice of voices (generated by humans, or instruments, or what have you) singly or in combination at any given moment on that line, which can be arranged into motifs which are repeated and varied or abandoned or not.

In film, a visual frame (which can present the {illusion of} motion, or a static image) and a soundtrack are assembled in linear time, and make use of how objects are placed in the frame, gesture, movement, dialogue, ambient sound, color, ellipses, etc.  Or not.

In dance, you have a three dimensional frame, the movement through which, as well as the gestures of the dancers themselves, is presented in linear time, usually along with a soundtrack.  Styles of gesture are recognized ("ballet," "tango," "jazz"), punctuation of time is integral.  As it is with music and film and textual narrative, natch.  But here, the punctuation is not disconnected from the body creating the expression.  The body is the punctuation.  Perhaps that's why I missed saying it before?

In theater, you have a three dimensional frame in which you place objects and people through which you move characters and sound and other elements over linear time.

In perfume, what do you have?

First of all, you have sensory input to a receptor that is not employed in any other of the traditional "fine arts."  Your nose, natch.  Forms and mechanics of reception are important.  Entire schools of criticism have developed around reception being The Thing that is important in understanding, particularly when it comes to art.

But since the ragged assembly of art forms and how they are expressed I offered focuses on what is presented, let's attempt to speak to that.

In perfume, you have the presentation of different notes (the smell of x), in different voices, arranged singly or in multiples, over the course of linear time.

It seems so simple.  But really, should those notes be expressed by their cognate in reality?  I.e., should we say cinnamon, or the word for the molecule that when bound in a given fashion, is the thing which lands in your nose and makes you think "cinnamon"?  What if it smells like a cognate, but is lab created?  I.e., peach or Persicol?

Can we tease out the difference between a "chord" and an "accord"?  As in, is there a difference in simply assembling given notes because a perfumer likes the effect of them sharing the same space in the same time from a perfumer assembling notes and creating a resulting effect that is uniquely identifiable and more than simply the sum of its parts?  When we here a C minor 7th, do we hear the individual notes, or the mood?  Does it depend on where the root is located?  Will the language here get confusing?

**
Anyway, I think like this.  I haven't yet wrapped my head around it all in a way that I am comfortable with.  And I think that is partly because the community is still very much in the process of locating a definition, and a language.  All languages, of course, are always being shaped to one extent or another.  But this one is kinda being birthed as a golem:  fully present, but still in need of shaping.

*
Andy Tauer offers a lovely vision of what he sees the art of perfume.  He refers to perfume as an "immersive sculpture."  Apparently, this phrase is now part of the Tauer text...on PR materials, his new packaging, and will appear soon on the website and blog.  He offered a brief post two days ago about it, framing the concept within an interviewer's request to explain "what is immersive sculpture?"

He uses the immersive sculpture idea to suggest mutable three-dimensionality, and the idea that it is a form the wearer/receiver inhabits.

Andy's found a way to weave reception right into the concept, a way which won't let you ignore it.

I'm intrigued.

I'm still plugging away with my cognates, of course (I lean toward music and film), but the empty areas are kind of cocking an eyebrow over there and saying "you have to pay attention."

I am.