What do war, feminism and love smell like? This German exhibition 'nose' the answer

By&nbspJakub Dutkiewicz&nbspwith&nbspAP

Published on 01/11/2025 - 8:32 GMT+1

Paintings bent lifelessly successful nan agelong corridors of museums we visited connected schoolhouse trips.

Marble sculptures guidelines everlastingly stiff successful action.

The measurement we interact pinch and acquisition creation seems disproportionately focused connected nan senses we trust connected astir to make consciousness of reality - our show and hearing.

But beyond nan world of show and sound, location is untapped imaginable to acquisition creation successful caller ways - done our different senses.

The Kunstpalast depository successful Düsseldorf is seeking to harness 1 of them: our consciousness of smell.

The exhibition, titled The Secret Power of Scents, takes visitors connected a travel spanning a millennium of smells - a thousand-year voyage crossed taste history and nan fragrances that accompanied it.

"I looked astatine nan eras, nan centuries, but besides individual objects and exhibits, and examined what domiciled scents played successful nan respective times, what mightiness person conscionable been recently developed, what was invented, what played a societal role,” says Robert Müller-Grünow, nan exhibition’s curator and an master connected scent and scent technology.

There is simply a directness to smell that tin make for a much vivid and engaging acquisition of art.

"Scents are purely emotional, nan only sensory stimulus that cannot beryllium rationally filtered,” explains Müller-Grünow. “It goes straight to nan limbic system. It is ever contiguous successful specified a measurement that it creates emotions."

War, religion, emotion and feminism

Scents of incense and myrrh capable nan aerial successful a room adorned pinch belief carvings, composing a segment that transports america straight to ancient chapels and sacraments.

Those drawn to nan simplicity of our ancestors’ regular lives tin romanticise nan peasant acquisition amidst a recreation of nan smells 1 could expect connected a thoroughfare successful medieval Paris – sewage, mould and unwashed bodies.

Visitors mightiness physically recoil aliases retreat successful fearfulness erstwhile their nostrils are assaulted by scents from a World War I frontline – a substance of blood, gunpowder and sulphur.

There’s moreover thing for nan much sensual visitors, funny astir nan potency of Early Medieval aphrodisiacs. What amended measurement to find retired than by smelling nan scents of roses and a civet’s anal glands for yourself.

But location are besides smells that reassure, that comfort, that bring america backmost aliases show an important story. Smells of infinity, of important perfumes, scents that observe early feminism.

Müller-Grünow, nan curator, wants nan accumulation to shed ray connected nan value of scents successful religion, politics, art, consumerism, and subject – each combining into a holistic creator experience.

The accumulation has now opened its doors to visitors, featuring complete 81 chopped fragrances crossed 37 galleries.

So spell person a whiff if you can.

The Secret Power of Scents runs astatine Düsseldorf’s Kunstpalast Museum until 8 March 2026.

Video editor • Theo Farrant