tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4922907157797061660.post5710109582577741876..comments2024-03-28T10:30:51.283+01:00Comments on Grain de musc: No, Jean-Claude Ellena isn't a Minimalist (and he says so himself)carmencanada /Grain de Muschttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04046101625425953248noreply@blogger.comBlogger11125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4922907157797061660.post-41212979827079388802009-04-05T13:44:00.000+02:002009-04-05T13:44:00.000+02:00Cris, thank you... The matter of the figurative in...Cris, thank you... The matter of the figurative in perfumery is a complex one, and distinct from the question of JCE's minimalism. For instance, N°5 is always quoted as one of the first examples of great abstract perfumery: of course we can pick out distinct notes that refer to things that exist in nature, but the composition itself is self-referrent. It smells of perfume -- which is probably why it became a template of modern perfumery.<BR/><BR/>There are some notes that don't smell of anything actually found in the real world... But they aren't necessarily sufficient to create a fragrance, though they can carry it out of the pure realm of the figurative. Some fragrance represent only themselves...<BR/><BR/>However, coming back to JCE, it *is* true that minimalism doesn't apply per se to his style, going by the strict definition of the school: but then what? That question still hasn't been solved.carmencanada /Grain de Muschttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04046101625425953248noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4922907157797061660.post-48227189514628587242009-04-04T18:42:00.000+02:002009-04-04T18:42:00.000+02:00Denise, thanks for this thoughtful article. You ca...Denise, thanks for this thoughtful article. You captured exaclty one issue that always has been a type of "stereotype" in the perfumery of JCE. And people have to open their minds to break some these stereotypes.One more time, this great master is totally right. I think that minimalist term is very hard concept to be used in evocative and personal issue as the perfumery, no matter how clean are his fragrances. It is time we use other adjective to describe his art and really your article was a learning for me as a writer and an fragrance evaluator. I need to read my book Je sais Le Parfum(could not yet) and something about Camus to a better understanding, anyway the quote "we never really leave the realm of the figurative" summarizes that minimalism word should be used more carefully when refering to the work of perfumers. Perfumery is highly figurative, that is the point.Merci!Cris Rosa Negrahttp://perfumedarosanegra.blogspot.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4922907157797061660.post-4420210756374364582009-03-29T22:51:00.000+02:002009-03-29T22:51:00.000+02:00Ce commentaire a été supprimé par un administrateur du blog.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4922907157797061660.post-1677682576062316092009-03-28T17:48:00.001+01:002009-03-28T17:48:00.001+01:00Wendy, you mean Visa isn't enough for you on its o...Wendy, you mean Visa isn't enough for you on its own? (Faints dead away).carmencanada /Grain de Muschttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04046101625425953248noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4922907157797061660.post-50258307425977796422009-03-28T17:48:00.000+01:002009-03-28T17:48:00.000+01:00Jarvis, JCE himself suggests describing materials ...Jarvis, JCE himself suggests describing materials through words borrowed from the other senses. His classification of forms according to "schools" also uses concepts developed for other art forms (baroque, classical, abstract, figurative, narrative, minimalist).<BR/>I would certainly add post-modern (thinking of Laudamiel's work in particular).carmencanada /Grain de Muschttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04046101625425953248noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4922907157797061660.post-82552090224710121062009-03-28T17:14:00.000+01:002009-03-28T17:14:00.000+01:00I love the use of literary, art, design and musica...I love the use of literary, art, design and musical terms to talk about perfumery, it really brings it home to me.<BR/><BR/>And I LOVE Visa, feral is a great word for it. <BR/><BR/>Today I'm juxtaposing it with Or Black, not sure if that was the best idea, but I have loved them both in this testing week........<BR/><BR/>Bon weekend!Qwendyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10283489032029545283noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4922907157797061660.post-30047174541403045622009-03-28T14:06:00.000+01:002009-03-28T14:06:00.000+01:00Hi, D. I agree with you -- we've been "borrowing" ...Hi, D. I agree with you -- we've been "borrowing" terms from the visual arts, music, writing, etc., but the vocabulary of perfume aesthetics proper has not been fully worked out yet. It's nice to be able to discuss this here, and to propose ways of developing such a vocabulary.Jarvishttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08320628861633769796noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4922907157797061660.post-64101395497778673502009-03-28T07:31:00.000+01:002009-03-28T07:31:00.000+01:00Wendy, it's interesting to consider JCE's referenc...Wendy, it's interesting to consider JCE's references -- here he mentions Camus, elsewhere Cézanne... I've often illustrated posts about his compositions with Cy Twombly, but that's just an intuitive rapprochement. Modernist, Structuralist, Existentialist... It's interesting to try the tool box on his work, but there is too little theory of perfume aesthetics to do it properly... yet.<BR/><BR/>P.S. Isn't Visa the most feral thing there is?carmencanada /Grain de Muschttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04046101625425953248noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4922907157797061660.post-36891293909314674382009-03-28T00:04:00.000+01:002009-03-28T00:04:00.000+01:00D, what an interesting post. I'm super guilty of ...D, what an interesting post. I'm super guilty of bandying about the term Minimalist, having famously once said to an self-avowed Interior Decor Minimalist at a party "Minimalism is fear based," which I can now back up with the idea that it might be the fear of emotion, and of the messiness of being human.........<BR/><BR/>I remember the post when you cited M. Ellena as one, I think I quoted you somewhere. I think that the thoughtful Jarvis has it just right in referring to him instead as a Modernist, a term I also often use about design, making the distinction vs Minimalism, as the two ideas are so often conflated over here in the US, and misused. Since I've begun teaching, I've gotten a bit pedantic ; ) <BR/><BR/>I'm embarrassed to say that I am not a fan of the scents of M. Ellena, although I am a big fan of the man himself, I love reading insights from people who do the work itself, it's so rare, as you mention at the end of your post, in many creative fields, don't you think?<BR/><BR/>That said, I'm wearing Vintage Visa on one arm, and Vintage Futur on the other one today (big samples sent by a dear pal), what a luxury, they are both just great!<BR/><BR/>Thanks for a great thought provoking post!Qwendyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10283489032029545283noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4922907157797061660.post-57412344188965466802009-03-27T09:31:00.000+01:002009-03-27T09:31:00.000+01:00Jarvis, the "gap-filling" is something our brain d...Jarvis, the "gap-filling" is something our brain does naturally, I think -- this is why very novel fragrance compositions are not always perceived in the street, says Ellena somewhere else in his book. In his conference, he also explained that one of the characteristics of the evolution of a fragrance over time is that we still perceive notes after they have evaporated, which lends continuity to the development. This is one of the reasons he calls himself an illusionist and a thief of smells...<BR/>Oh, how I wish more perfumers had thought out their discourse (for us intellectuals to mull over...).carmencanada /Grain de Muschttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04046101625425953248noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4922907157797061660.post-30455890481816642622009-03-27T06:03:00.000+01:002009-03-27T06:03:00.000+01:00Dear Denyse: Thank you for this thought-provoking ...Dear Denyse: Thank you for this thought-provoking post, and thanks also to Monsieur Ellena for once again speaking so eloquently about his "écriture olfactive." It certainly is intriguing to hear from someone who has clearly devoted a lot of thought to defining his own aesthetic.<BR/><BR/>I do think that Ellena's work does exhibit a certain privileging of economy of means and formal simplicity, even if we do not call this "Minimalism" in the strict sense. While there isn't the sort of pure abstraction of minimalism (the "odor for the sake of odor"), there is a kind of stylization, I should think, in the deployment of fragrance notes as signs. That is, unlike the "naturally classic era" you mentioned in your earlier post of JCE's comments at the Institut de la Mode (when perfumers used notes like rose and jasmine as "themselves"), notes are now used to <I>evoke</I> rather than to represent in any strict, "realistic" way. The use of the word "sign" certainly has a structuralist flavour to it, especially in highlighting the way that "signs convey meaning" (i.e. emphasizing that the relationship between signifier and signified is not one of equivalence, but rather, necessarily involves some degree of abstraction).<BR/><BR/>I think there is also a modernist perspective implied in Monsieur Ellena's comments on time and evolution. The idea that fragrance is not static, but evolves in time seems to draw our attention (in a very modern way) to the ever-changing relationships between perfumer, the perfume, and the one who experiences the perfume. The perfumer's creative process (especially when it can be so eloquently conveyed), and the perceiver's unique experience at THIS particular moment (during which, as you said the other day, the perfume "consumes itself" as we smell it!) are all wrapped up in the total experience of fragrance as art.<BR/><BR/>One more interesting thing to me (if you'll forgive this long and meandering comment) is the idea that the skill of the perfumer is involved in "evoking" reality in a way that feels "realer" than the real. I was just re-smelling Eau Parfumée Au Thé Vert the other day, and was struck again how it gives such a strong feeling of tea, knowing full well that the <I>astuce</I> of pairing ionone + Hedione is not really the "smell" of tea itself, but somehow the "idea" of tea. (Frankly, it implies to me that all of our sensory perceptions of the world around us involve some degree of abstraction or idealization, and part of the pleasure in the "legibility" of some of these fragrances is the pleasure of letting the brain "fill in the gaps" or make the connections between the signs and our conceptions of the Real.Jarvishttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08320628861633769796noreply@blogger.com