Ever wondered what a still life smells like? Or whether a beautiful pastoral landscape actually smelt of manure? Well, the Mauritshuis in The Hague will be bringing 17th-century Dutch paintings to life with scent dispensers (which will apparently be “coronavirus-proof”) for its exhibition Fleeting: Scents in Colour. These will range from the “phenomenal stink of [Amsterdam's] canals” in works such as Jan van der Heyden’s View of the Oudezijds Voorburgwal with the Oude Kerk in Amsterdam (around 1670), to the scent of powdery flowers and overripe fruit in Abraham Mignon’s Still Life of Flowers and Fruit (1670).
— Read more in Smelly shows, fast cars and a swamp in a nightclub: the strangest art exhibitions coming up in 2021 at The Art Newspaper.
? I wonder if this will get my husband more interested in fragrance given that this subject matter – classical art – is right up his alley. We shall see!
Thanks for posting, Robin!
Ah, good luck!
Hmm. Are they going to include the smell of a butchershop for those paintings of a joint of meat, or beer for all those paintings of bars and poker games?
Sorta doubt it 🙂