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In the eyes of French cultural historians, smell is not purely a physiological instinct. From the distaste of stench in ancient Greece, to the tolerance of the stench during the Renaissance, and to the emerging bourgeoisie after the Enlightenment, the scent was regarded as a sign of identity. Change and change.
What’s more intriguing is that the smell is also moralized. When the religious atmosphere is strong, the smell is always associated with women and misogyny, and the fragrance is often related to sensory pleasure. It was not until the secularization of modern Europe that the concept of smell was transformed. The history of smell is actually a history of changes in Western society and thought.
In recent years, biology’s emphasis on olfactory research and the globalization of the perfume trade have set off a modern revival of the smell culture.
Smell has been degraded and ignored by the cultural circle in the past hundreds of years, and Diderot has called it the most indulgent. (voluptueux) Of the senses. From the perspective of pragmatism, Kant strongly proved the disadvantages of smell: touch, hearing, and vision are all objective, while taste and smell are subjective feelings. Smell makes people’s perception of objects short and fuzzy, which cannot be described by language, and its absolute animal nature makes it impossible to have any possibility of cultural reflection.
Until more than 20 years ago, scientific research found that olfaction is the only sensation that directly enters the marginal center of the brain without passing through the thalamus (And vision, touch, taste,Hearing has this transition process) ; Moreover, it has strong individual differences and identification, and it is also the central role for the establishment of infant neurons.
In other words, only the sense of smell is acquired the day after tomorrow, and the feeling of being affected by social experience is a product of cultural depression. Neuroscientists have since paid attention to its value and believe that smell is the most primitive emotional foundation.
In the twentieth century, the evil murder and odor trap in Pa Juskind’s “Perfume” caused a sensation in the literary world. In 2006, it was adapted into a film of the same name and brought to the screen. I foreshadowed. Relevant research has flowed a lot. In 1998, Benik’s master’s thesis (Aurélie Biniek) , “Scents and Spices from the 16th to the 17th Century” Corbin’s 2001 monograph (Alain Corbain) ‘s monograph “Rhythm and Narcissus” and other academic achievements make the dual smell of fragrance and odor Feelings have become a popular topic today.
Poster of the movie “Perfume: The Story of a Murderer” (Source: douban.com)
In 2018, the French historian Robert Mushamblad’s new work (Robert Muchembled) ‘s “Scented Civilization” (La Civilisationdes Odeurs) is placed in the most prominent position of bookstores in major cities in France. Different from other monotonesThe sturdy celebrity avatar and its cover, its low saturation color permeates the quaint charm, and the cover shows a half-length portrait of a Renaissance lady. The author seems to be tired of the repetition of historical hearings, and instead turns his attention to the traces left by human smell in the course of history.
The sense of smell is always reminiscent of the primitive survival instinct of animals, which sounds nothing to do with civilization. At the medical level, stench was regarded as a source of epidemic disease during the plague. At the custom level, people’s aversion to stench was rooted in ancient Greek culture, but was eased during the Renaissance. At the religious level, the Godfather Theological Institute The developed ogreology equates the ubiquitous “smelly smell” to “devil”; at the level of life, incense and stink transmit vague secret words between lovers, which opens the temptation game.
For the author, the dual view of incense and smell, good and evil runs through the changes of Western thought in the subtle way. The theme of smell is an outcast of the ideological circle, which is manifested in the unconscious. Expressiveness everywhere.
At the beginning of the book, Mushamblad affirms the domestication process of social life to personal olfactory perception. Just because people’s olfactory discrimination often classifies odors under customary rules, olfactory research is actually a cultural study to judge incense and odor.
From the Renaissance to the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the stench was not generally disgusted as it was later, it became a delightful joke in the works of Rabelais. However, Bakhtin denied that the Rabelais-like carnival was universal, on the grounds that the latter expressed “comedy destiny of the people” and merely reflected the subversion of the underlying class to the original value system and hierarchy.
But Mushamblad dismissed this, believing that Bakhtin’s carnival theory was his own re-creation and could not fully represent Rabelais’ position. When Bakhtin began to write Rabelais’s literary criticism in 1940, he was participating in anti-Soviet operations and was marginalized, so he used the theory of literary theory to ridicule the political environment. As a humanist doctor, Rabelais is in daily contact with a small number of educated people and intellectuals, not ordinary people. His works started with writers, cultural classes, and high society as audiences, and later became popular among ordinary people. Therefore, his work’s tolerance for odor reflects a certain commonality of the times.
In fact, the stench environment of medieval cities not only made the stench widely accepted by the public, but also many intellectuals started their exploration of eroticism and desire through the smell. Enthusiasts, enthusiasts and communicators. ”
French historian Robert Muchembled (source: babelio.com)
Since then, the catalysis of religious wars and the recurrence of plague have promoted animal fragrances. (referring to musk and ambergris imported from Central and Northeast Asia and Africa Etc.) The widespread use of has also made the deodorization and deodorization and the plague-proof operation launched.
During the period of the Black Death in the Middle Ages, “Devilology” emerged from the theology of Aquinas and other theologians. This doctrine explains the origin of the plague plague, Satan, and convinces people that driving Satan can Get back health and happiness. People think that “Satan is everywhere”, and the cause of the disease is hidden in the dirty body and excrement.
Based on this aversion to stench and fear of plague, people try to isolate themselves from the outside air. In 1619, Louis XIII’s pharmacist imagined an airtight garment for the isolation of the body from the outside air. Dr. Rennes Lambery Air (Jeande Lampérière) The public is advised to bring linoleum handkerchiefs to prevent contact with the breath exhaled by the patient. Wear sweaters and silks to prevent contaminated gases from penetrating the skin from the gaps in the clothes.
Therefore, people are keen to isolate themselves with strong fragrant leather clothing, which can not only mask the odor of their own body, but also prevent the infectious odor in the air from contacting the body. In order to hide the unpleasant musty and rancid smell of animal leather, the leather goods trader will apply rich animal spices to the leather. This animal fragrance is derived from the gonads of exotic beasts. It is rich in testosterone and steroids, which will arouse human sexual desire. Therefore, the artificial animal fragrance was given a contradictory dual character at the time: Its front is a folk to resist odor and pollutionOn the other hand, the opposite side of the weapon is the moral seductiveness of the defender.
In the seventeenth century, the change in the aroma-making raw materials set off a “spicy revolution”. Animal aromas were gradually replaced by plant aromas. At the beginning of the century, orange blossom, lavender, and fruit extracts in France were favored by perfume manufacturers and began to replace the use of extraterrestrial animal incense. By the eighteenth century, the elegant botanical fragrance was widely used in Europe.
In addition, due to the prosperity of the aristocratic salon culture, women’s participation in society has increased. The mildness of the plant fragrance is more in line with the identity of women, while the sexual teasing meaning of the animal fragrance is beginning to be rejected. As a result, the use of plant fragrances, flowers and fruits to refine spices has become popular and has become a more popular way of making fragrance. It was not until the period of the First Empire that the military expansion of Napoleon in France around Europe raised the values of warlike warfare, so that the strong and stimulating animal fragrance returned again.
The changes in aroma-making materials reflect the social outlook of the seventeenth century: improved sanitation, the gradual elimination of plague, the return of water and soap brought bathing back to the lives of citizens, and the emerging bourgeoisie used scent as a mark of social distinction. To a certain extent, the respect for natural science and the affirmation of self-consciousness in the Enlightenment ideology gradually promoted the transformation of scent customs : Baring the body is no longer considered shameful or unhealthy, Wearing leather is no longer popular.
Cesare Ripe (source: wikiwand.com)
In the study of Cesare’s (Cesare Ripe) , Mushamblad also mentioned an interesting In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, many similar themes appeared, such as the figure of a noblewoman sitting: a noblewoman was decorated with petals in or near her hands, and the dog looked up to her knee. In these paintings, dogs, flowers, ladies, and