Scent & the Art of the Pre-Raphaelites
Barber Institute of Fine Art | Birmingham Scent is a key motif in paintings by the artists of the Pre-Raphaelite and Aesthetic movements. Fragrance is visually suggested in images of daydreaming figures smelling flowers or burning incense, enhancing the sensory aura of ‘art for art’s sake’. Scent was also implied in Victorian painting to evoke hedonism – pleasure in exquisite sensations – and a preoccupation with beauty; or to reflect the Victorian vogue for synaesthesia (evoking one sense through another) and the penchant for art, like scent, to evoke moods and emotions. This landmark exhibition is curated by Dr Christina Bradstreet, author of Scented Visions: Smell in Art, 1850-1914 (PSU Press, 2022). It highlights the role of the olfactory sense and its significance for some of Britain’s best-loved art treasures. from collections across the United Kingdom. Artists featured include Eleanor Fortescue-Brickdale, John Frederick Lewis, John Everett Millais, Evelyn De Morgan, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Simeon Solomon, and others. Commissioned and photographed in October 2024