With the Robertet group, a partner of the Biennale des Arts de Nice 2022, the musée Matisse has developed an olfactory journey around four works from the collection.
Produced in partnership with the Robertet group, based in Grasse and specialising in the production of natural raw materials for the perfume, cosmetics, aroma and active ingredient industries, this journey aims to highlight the importance of smell in Matisse’s creative process.
In dialogue with the museum’s team, the Robertet perfumiers produced four original, unique olfactory creations interpreting works by Matisse chosen from the tour.
Each perfume, in the form of fragrant balls placed in a box that each visitor can open, is placed next to the associated work. An explanatory description card reveals the links between the perfume created and the work, based on the words of Henri Matisse. So, by looking at Fleurs et fruits while inhaling the fragrance escaping from the box, the visitor joins Matisse during a spring walk in the garden, where all the senses are fully awakened.
Sensory perceptions, including the sense of smell, were inseparable from the act of painting for Matisse, for whom “the sensation comes first, then the idea”. Proustian, he paid great attention to synaesthesia as a means of probing the memory and bringing up past impressions. His work is no stranger to this neurological phenomenon which results in the multiplication of different sensations (visual, auditory, olfactory, etc.) experienced even when just a single sense is aroused. Colours, music and perfumes respond to each other in certain paintings by the artist, who never failed to note the consequences of weather variations on his painting and body, as well as the numerous sensations provided by contemplating landscapes and nature and discovering new lands. With this first experience of an olfactory journey, the musée Matisse is involved in the European research project Odeuropa, which aims to enhance the historical olfactory heritage and develop new museographic writings and mediation devices based on sensory experiences. The sense of smell, in particular, linked to our emotions and memories, can be a real gateway to museums and art.
