The perfumer and his art, - Printed in Soap, Perfumery & Cometics, September 1968 Options

[Le Jardin Retrou...]

THE PERFUMER AND HIS ART

This paper is based on lectures by Yuri GUTSATZ - chief perfumer, Roure-Bertrand Fils & Justin Dupont, Paris, France - before the members of the British Society of Perfumers, London, December 9th,1966, and before the Société Technique des Parfumeurs de France, Paris, March 15th, 1967

It has often been attempted to define creation in perfumery. Among those skilled in the art, discussions may even become quite passionate while the layman has a tendency to consider perfumery — at the stage of creation — like some modern alchemy where scientific postulates intermingle with secrets mysteriously associated with botany, animal kingdom, the whole jealously guarded by a handful of initiates officiating like so many high priests of some esoteric religion.

What is, actually, creation in perfumery?

What is its relationship with Art?

What was it yesterday?

What is its present status?

What will become of it tomorrow?

These are so many difficult questions to which we shall try to provide an answer. However, before discussing Art in perfume creation we shall first attempt to find as short as possible a definition of Art.

Art is the projection into life of a deep emotional expression of the artist, a man endowed with talent, or even genius. A gift of the gods, of heaven, of nature... This projection, in turn, produces a similar emotional reaction in those contemplating the artwork.

A work of art is the result of an inspiration, of an idea, of a sublimated vision of life which can remain unexpressed in hearts of millions who have not received the gift from God or devil, but which penetrates the conscience of millions once they have discovered through the artist this idea, this inspiration in his work of art, whatever it might be, music, painting, sculpture, literature, dance, theatre or any other means of expression men can utilize to express their innermost feelings.

A young, successful and promising perfumer, possessing a large musical culture, once told me: "... there are pieces of music which can make me cry. Never could a perfume, no matter how exalted, make me cry." Why is it so? Is not Perfumery an Art, on a par with music, poetry, painting?

Fundamentally, perfumery has become such a part of our daily life that it cannot be placed on a par with music, poetry or painting.

Perfumery per se is an art, with its own sources and means of expression, just like so many other artistic activities proper to human nature.

Man-made work does not have to draw tears to become actually a work of art, through the talent or the genius of its author. Because, in any field of human activity, whoever possesses a spark of genius is capable of transforming an ordinary act into a work of art, "this superfluous something that gives a meaning to life".

Since time immemorial, perfumery has drawn its substance from plants and rare products of animal origin, and the old recipes that have reached us after so many years, by way of alchemist's workshops (ointments, odoriferous oils) were mystery laden creations of an art just as mysterious, with a slight tinge of sorcery.

One had to await the great discoveries of organic chemistry to witness the unprecedented leap forward achieved by perfumery during the early years of the twentieth century. Then came the Armingeat's, the Coty's, the Guerlain's, the Beaux's and others, pioneers and builders all. Behind them, there was almost nothing, a few eaux de senteurs, a few pommades, a few floral extracts. Ahead of them there was an entire world awaiting to be discovered. They have discovered this world, and it is in this discovery of virgin lands in the creation of the foundations on which is based modern perfumery, in the spark of talent that transforms inert materials into odoriferous "accords", in this creation of beauty and harmony that resides the art of the great perfumers of the past. They have opened the way to progress (deriving their inspiration, inter alia, from the achievements of organic chemistry) so intimately convinced were they that perfumery would become increasingly intermingled with the life of an increasing number of people, would escape the restricted circle of a happy few and would little by little invade increasingly larger fields of the life of the public at large, bringing to all some happiness, some pleasure, some emotion.

There lies one of the great merits of the perfumers of the past. They were given materials and they judiciously utilized these. The talent of man giving life to raw matter. They deserve all our gratitude.

Much has been said and written about the sources of inspiration translated by such or such perfumer into accords of essential oils and flower absolutes, with the help of aromatic chemicals and products derived from the animal world.

It seems, however, that such sources are not identical with those from which painters, poets or musicians derive their inspiration and the basic difference between the sources of inspiration — between the starting points, so to speak — in perfumery and in the other arts will explain why creation in perfumery cannot be compared with creation in other fields of human expression.

What is inspiration, for the perfumer?

In perfumery, inspiration is not derived from observation of life, as in the novels of greats masters, it is not either derived from joy, or despair, from love or unhappiness, from the fear of death.

The perfumer has no message to convey. All he can do, is create a moment of beauty.

The great Russian poet, Pushkin, wrote somewhere that "one needs inspiration even to solve geometrical problems".

The perfumer's inspiration shows itself in his ability to transcend the odor perceptions he encounters: a fresh summer morning, the soft night air in a sleeping garden...

His inspiration is narrowly bound to his profound and intimate knowledge of the materials he is dealing with, of the way they will react with one another, will be exalted, sublimated, will strike the olfactory imagination of those for whom they are ultimately intended.

That which is true, which has so many times been said by writers and poets and so many times verified by each of us, is the evocative power of perfumes. A mere odorant whiff... and an entire past period of our life is conjured up out of oblivion.

No other sense possesses such magic power.

One should not forget that our sense of olfaction, the less used of our five senses (since civilized man, unlike his forefathers, does not need it to keep up his life) is the one most closely linked to physical life, to sex. But that which our nose perceives cannot be compared, as to efficacy and precision, with what is perceptible to our eyes and ears. Colors, shapes, sounds are concepts with which we are familiar. We are capable of effecting a detailed analysis thereof, of absorbing them so to speak, to impregnate our mind and heart.

Such is not the case with odors.

We are unable to "understand" an odor like we understand a painting, a poem, or even music.

The perfumer's art is not the same as the art of the painter, or of the poet; it does not thrive on the same sources.

Ernest Meunier, in his essay on "Psychologie du Parfumeur" tells how "chain inspiration" instigated a series of works of art. The starting point is a painting by Boucher, inspired by Greek mythology: two nymphs spied on by a faun.

Stéphane Mallarmé, the poet, inspired by this painting, wrote his eclogue "L'Après Midi d'un Faune".

Claude Debussy, the composer, takesh old of the eclogue and creates "Le Prélude à l'Après-Midi d'un Faune".

Finally, the Russian ballets take up the work of Debussy, with a choreography by Diaghilev, and Nijinsky, as dazzling as a young God, dances it on stage.

A painter, a poet, a musician, a choreographer, a dancer... here is our "chain inspi¬ration" and Ernest Meunier concludes "There is no place for a perfumer; in vain have I searched the eclogue to find therein some olfactory translatable emotion."

Indeed, the eclogue by Mallarmé, the ballet by Diaghilev have the same power as the picture by Boucher of calling to mind, without possible mistake, "L'Aprés-Midi d'un Faune" Debussy's admirable music, however, would only seldom promote the emotions corresponding to "L'Aprés-Midi d'un Faune" if it had not been given an explanatory title, and it appears impossible to imagine the warm, wild, musky and also highly floral, resinous and "green" perfume that could be claimed to be capable of conjuring up in the minds of all, without help of a precise indication, of words generating notions of colors and shape, the chiaroscuro of under woods and the underlying erotism of the subject.

Perfumery has no language of its own. The most outstanding olfactory masterpiece can be misunderstood or misinterpreted; where the author was under the impression he had translated into an odoriferous language a definite, precise image others will smell, or, rather feel something entirely different, unless the composition exhibits such high originality that they will be entirely unaffected by it.

Thus, the perfumer should be fully conscious of the fact that, whatever the origin of his inspiration, his creations have no other aim but to bring to the senses some fleeting moment of pleasure a transient feeling of beauty, and that his perfumes will not be evaluated on grounds of inherent value, as emotional reflections, but solely with respect to human beings, women especially (due to their evocative power of specific events of life), just as one evaluates the creation of a tailor, of a couturier, solely with respect to the man or woman who will wear it. In fact, a woman wears a perfume like she wears a gown.

Perfumes cannot, per se, be exposed to the public's admiration. Only the outer form is perceptible; the odor waves remain concealed, like dead, until someone opens the bottle, breaks the outer form. One has not, so far, imagined olfactory sessions where, in closed especially devised rooms, perfumes would be sprayed for public enter¬tainment, just like an orchestra playing one concerto after another.

Is creation in perfumery, nowadays, entirely similar to what it was yesterday? Has it, following the evolution of society, prompted by the technological advances of the past thirty years, undergone such changes that one can no longer speak of ART in perfumery, as defined hereinabove?

When comparing the working conditions of a contemporary of Francois Coty with those of present-day creative perfumers three major differences are apparent.

First of all, as already mentioned, fifty years ago, everything had yet to be discovered, therefore, everything was new. Today, all the routes that may be followed with the tools and materials at one's disposal are explored, well tread, and full of landmarks and road signs.

Secondly, the "old" perfumer's only aim was to work for "the happy few", perfumery being a luxury. He was governed by no other consideration than to lure, with his creations, the ladies who strolled into the shops of the Rue de la Paix. Today, the perfumer works in terms of mass production, has to keep in mind cost prices, availability of raw materials, regularity of supplies, particularities of such or such export market, have an eye on competition at home and abroad, find his way among thousands of specialties that are all claimed to be capable of solving any problem, scrutinize all that chemistry has to offer in the vast field of synthetically produced materials and discover, among countless new products, the one which really represents a worthwhile contribution.. In short, he has to disperse his efforts, to look after all details... not to mention all the problems involved by controls, tests, compatibility conditions in various media (soap, cosmetics, aerosols), and the like.

Finally, fifty years ago perfumery was some kind of artisan work. In our present era of long playing records, transistor radios and paperbacks, perfumery has entered the field of mass production and mass consumption.

An artisan who loved his work, who was able to take it up time and again until perfect, like a cabinet-maker polishing with love the piece of rare wood he was transforming in some beautiful piece of furniture, was an artist; but the species is about to die out.

The old perfumer was such a craftsman. Today, it is seldom that a perfumer can afford to behave like the artisan polishing with love a piece of precious wood.

Present day perfumer is a technician who must act to meet the requirements of his time. He has to find an almost immediate answer to the problems submitted by salespeople, by marketing advisers, by export promotion specialists. He is no longer master of his time or of his inspiration. Always in a hurry, always sacrificing to the wishes of the public, after having sacrificed to the dictates of cost, efficiency, planning and given due consideration to all the problems involved in launching a perfumery product on the market.

Is it possible, within such a scope to practice an art? Certainly, up to a point. Modern perfumer needs as much talent and inspiration as his contemporaries working in other fields: cinema, fashion, advertising, publishing or architecture. Thus modern perfumer has developed an "art" that corresponds to the world he lives in.

Because, in this case also, it is only the man who courts. A cabinet-maker can be an artist just as a surgeon, a barrister or... a mathematician. Modern perfumer also can be such an artist.

A creator within his own field of action, can it be said that the perfumer enjoys nowadays entire creative freedom, this super-liberty which places the artist way above common man? Is he able to cause emotional shocks, to fight his battle counter-current to the accepted tendencies? Is his inspiration sufficiently unhindered so that his creative productions will reflect the rich experience and deep understanding of a craftsman endowed with an exclusive gift?

We have already noted some of the limitations imposed upon his freedom of expres¬sion. Are there any others?

What goes on between the laboratory where the perfumer creates his perfume and the show-case of the store where the perfume will be displayed once actually on the market?

The way will be long and hard. Many hurdles will have to be passed; unfortunately, the creation that will eventually overcome all the difficulties encountered on its way will not necessarily be the best, the masterpiece produced with so much labor, care and, perhaps, love.

What was originally such a masterpiece in the eyes of his author will have become a mere commodity evaluated on the basis of its potential market value, compared with other perfumes, assessed with respect to the appeal it may have for some foreign market, and the like.

One might be tempted to assume that a masterpiece created by a master-perfumer will successfully cross all hurdles and be accepted per se by all people involved in the final marketing process.

Far from it. Perfume, a subjective, evanescent and subtle creation may be utterly misunderstood and rejected because of its very original character which is not felt to be consistent with the actual demands of the market or the latest fashion.

Therefore, the creative perfumer unlike other artistic creators, cannot give full scope to his imagination and express himself freely, and must comply with all kinds of contingencies. In short, he will ultimately work for purposes of a more commercial than artistic order and all his efforts will be directed to the production of a... perfume... which will have to be as enthralling, as perfect as possible, but which will also have to please those committed to pass judgement on it. When all is said and done, we are a long way from a strictly personal achievement primarily meant to transmit to others the basic inspiration of its author.

Perfumers are not responsible for such a situation; it results from the tendencies that have prevailed for the past twenty years in our present type of society.

There are today, this is no secret, two kinds of perfumers. On the one hand the perfumer working for a House the products of which are directly distributed to consumers. On the other hand, the anonymous perfumer attached to a manufacturer of raw materials who has to respond to all kinds of demands and meet the requirements of a vast international clientele who purchases his creations to market these under their name.

While the former, who is working under a national flag, so to speak, has to face all the limitations imposed upon his inspiration and know-how we have just reviewed, the latter is still worse off in this respect. He must have an extremely strong personality to impose his style and his art; as often as not, all his efforts will tend to effect the syn¬thesis of all the obscurely expressed wishes, whimsical ideas and desires of so many people that his creative mind will eventually be transformed into some kind of distorted mirror. He has to adapt his personality each time in a different manner. He is like a good actor who, with each character he is personifying, changes his physical and moral entity. However, just like an actor will actually become an accomplished artist only after having mastered the art of personifying the most varied characters to the point of becoming identified with them, the perfumer working for a manufacturer of raw materials, after having come in contact with an incredibly dissimilar array of people, of widely contrasting problems, will ultimately acquire an absolutely amazing mastery in the expression of his talent.

He has to know everything and be able to answer every question. And so it is! He is relentlessly called upon to use the full range of his vast knowledge.

Truth to tell, this is not always easy or pleasant and one's creative imagination is hard stressed. However, at this game, the latter acquires finesse and acuity. While he manages, now and then, to have some time unto himself to work on some idea close to his heart, he also finds himself faced with situations where a third party tries to impose on him "sources of inspiration" of a sometimes most bizarre order.

I shall try to draw a caricatural picture of a situation with which many are quite familiar.

A new client, a business man, meets the perfumer attached to a specialized House. The client is enthusiastic, is about to revolutionize perfumery. He wishes to express his own personality, to make the definite "break through", to carry perfumery to still unknown heights. He begs our perfumer for his most unusual, most revolutionary, most appealing creation. He speaks inexhaustibly of a perfume that should smell of tomorrow, that should resemble nothing already existing, that should contain a bit of nostalgia, a bit of joy, a bit of erotism... Naturally, he will not even discuss costs.

Every good perfumer has on his shelves a few "rough sketches" of this type, wherein he has tried to express some personal ideas, to follow unbridled fancy, or, more prosaically, to use comparatively unknown odorant materials in unusual proportions.

In an attempt to meet his client's desires, the perfumer will carry out a number of tests with such out-of-the-ordinary formulations. Samples will be taken away by the client to be examined "without prejudice or partiality".

Shortly afterwards, the client will visit our perfumer again. Since his last visit, he has had time to submit the new perfume to his relatives, his friends, to associates, to marketing specialists, to agents, to all those upon whom lies the responsibility to make a commercial success of this new perfume.

And now, he will talk an entirely different language. There will be no more "bits of nostalgia, or of erotism". Naturally the client will say he is tremendously pleased with the new perfume which corresponds so perfectly to his own vision of life, but... but, could the perfumer rework it slightly so that its top note will be somewhat reminiscent of perfume X (forty years old), that its evaporation will bear some likeness to perfume Y (twenty years old) and that its end note would somehow remind one of perfume Z (the latest international success), and to sum up, that it should not cost more than so much, that it will please the age-group from 18 to 25 and simultaneously the age-group from 30 to 50, and also, mind you, that it will be very long lasting as they like it in Latin America, be extremely powerful as it is preferred in the United States, and possess this indefinite, inexpressible, inimitable originality and freshness of a genuine creation of Paris...

Our perfumer who, through the years, has become quite familiar with such a speech, will have to rework a creation he was sincerely fond of. He will consult his files, strain his memory, calculate cost prices, make numerous experiments with all possible combinations of accords, proportions, top and basic notes, in short, will put together the various items of an intricate puzzle. This, however, will actually be a true perfumery creation... because one has to have a genuine creative mind to achieve what I have just tried to describe!

So far, we have considered exclusively the perfumer's most glamorous achievement, THE PERFUME, the alcoholic extract in its beautiful bottle designed by some well known artist. But is today's perfumery limited to perfume and its closely related counterparts, alcoholic TOILET WATER or COLOGNE, in conventional or pressurized packing?

Well, certainly not. Perfumes are the glittering banners, the prestige display items of our industry, and a perfumer will derive fame from having his name attached to a successful "extract".

Perfume industry, today and tomorrow, is not restricted to alcoholic perfume alone, everyone is aware of this. But there is no glory to be drawn from a successful formulation to be used in insecticides or household deodorants. In lectures or papers dealing with creation in perfumery, one skips almost shamefully the vast, unlimited field of odoriferous products representing a by far more important volume than de luxe perfumery. (Soap, however, escapes such discrimination and much is said and written about it). The art and skill of the modern perfumer cannot be limited by his ability to produce a few more or less expensive extracts or toilet waters. He has to respond to the continuously growing demands from all quarters.

Perfumery is no longer a field restricted to" the happy few". In the second half of the twentieth century, it has become an industry which, just like so many others, is dependent on scientific research, on the advances effected in equipment and machinery, on the training of technicians and skilled labor, and must insure industrial scale size production.

We are living, without noticing it, in a perfumed, in an odorant world; it is unques¬tionable that modern perfumer possesses a certain social status in contemporary society. He is responsible, to some extent, for the well being of our society, because the odors by which we are surrounded in all walks of life are undeniable factors of well being or of discomfort.

Without exaggeration, one could say that deprived of odors, the world would be an awfully dull place; without the perfume of flowers and plants, without the odor of new-mown hay, without the salty refreshing smell of sea-breeze, without the odor of burning logs, of freshly baked bread, of a steaming cup of coffee, without the smoke of a fine cigar or of a good pipe... and so many other fragrances that are part of life's beauty.

In a stinking world of exhaust pipes from millions of cars, under skies low from industrial smog, in buses and underground coaches packed to full capacity with a perspiring harassed crowd, we have to re-create a fresh whiff of the scents of nature of which we are so grievously deprived, in order to make existence somewhat more bear¬able, to feel better, cleaner, healthier.

It has been told that if perfumery reached such a development during the eighteenth century in France, it was mostly due to the filth and stink of beautiful Château de Versailles where ten thousand people, or more, without bathrooms or hygiene, flooded themselves with gallons of scented waters to cover the unbearable stench they were living in...

So, in contemporary civilized society, the perfumer has stepped in to create a new world of pleasant fragrances.

For purposes of corporeal hygiene we consume tremendous amounts of odoriferous preparations almost without noticing it. Let alone the usual paraphernalia of perfumes, cosmetics and toiletries of a woman who gives great attention to advertisements in ladies' magazines, let alone all the toilet waters, lotions, creams, lipsticks, cleansers, face powders, make-up preparations, sprays, mists, lacquers and the like, average con¬temporary man — and this fact is in no way related to his income bracket — handles, day in, day out, numerous odorant products that have now become important components of his daily life.

His toothpaste, his soap, his shampoo, his eau-de-Cologne, his shaving cream, his after-shave lotion, his hair cream or gel or lotion, his talcum powder are all perfumed with blends made to attract his attention, to make him feel clean, fresh and healthy.

Let us glance into the housewife's cupboard: there are to be found the faithful appliances of the well kept home: the detergents in powder and liquid form, for cotton, silks and woolens, for cleaning bathtubs, floors, tiles, windowpanes, sprays for furniture polish, room deodorants, insect repellents, and the like.

All such preparations are perfumed with blends as alluring as possible to recreate the impression of coolness, of freshness, of cleanliness with bouquets of Lavender, Pine, Rose, Lilac, Lily of the Valley... a garden in bloom in one's kitchen cupboard...

We have become conditioned to respond to odors and, more often than not, select our toiletries and household products on the basis of their perfume, their other properties being substantially identical from one brand to another.

Even shoe polish and certain paints are perfumed. In some places, textiles are impregnated with perfumes to exhibit improved sales appeal; perfumes are sprayed in theatres and cinemas. Our life is invaded by perfumes, is penetrated by odors from all sides.

One can always appeal to the sense of olfaction. It will always respond.

By creating such a range of perfumes and odors, the qualified technician, the perfumer who knows how to adapt a perfume for use in soap, in a detergent, in a cream, in a lacquer or in an aerosol preparation, the perfumer, through his work, has intruded into the life of contemporary society.

The tempo of our life is changing with tremendous rapidity, and the way of life of our society is undergoing changes at a rate unknown in previous periods of our history. The perfumer who has to live within the society of his time is compelled to adapt his creative work to standards and requirements which are liable to change from year to year.

Here again, although he will come up against dictates that impose limitations upon freedom of creation, the experienced technician will have to adapt himself by altering or readjusting his way of thinking and of working. And this is where the creative perfumer can be distinguished by his ready capability to follow, and, sometimes, precede, the trend of his epoch.

The difference between a genuine creator and one who is only a skilled technician is that the creative mind of the former is ceaselessly on the alert for new outlooks to renew his productions and to be safe from indefinitely repeating a once successful pattern.

We owe it to truth to say that such continuous renewal is unquestionably facilitated by the discoveries made in the field of the chemistry of aromatic compounds that have provided the perfumer with new odorant materials, thereby enlarging the range of available raw materials and, concomitantly, enlarging the scope of his creative ability.

The perfumer helps this society to live in a somewhat more pleasant manner.

Thus, transcending the glory of alcoholic perfumes, the obscure and anonymous odors that have pervaded our environment recreate about us like a whiff of nature's lovely fragrances from which we are sorely cut off in a daily life confined to vistas of concrete and bleak stones.

Without noticing it, without being conscious of it, the creative perfumer of today has the rare privilege to be one of the few who by their craft and science have the talent to move our senses and embellish a little this electronic age of ours.

It is said that the day is not far away when a computer adequately fed with information will be able to produce push button formulations.

This is possible, and entirely feasible, and no vision of science fiction. It is unques¬tionable that such formulations will be well balanced and technically perfect... but it is difficult for us to believe that they will not be lacking in something only the touch of man is able to bring about: a bit of fantasy, a slight miscalculation tiny mistakes that are always present in all human creations. While these are sometimes the accidental and miraculous causes of great discoveries, they are always factors that make such creations lively and precious.

Computers will never replace entirely creators and, among them, perfumers.

The Art of Perfumery and perfumers themselves possess a great and rare privilege: they are human. In the age of nuclear terror, among his kind — those creating beauty in the world — the perfumer is perhaps one of the last troubadours.


Yuri GUTSATZ

Paris, November, 1966.
Villars sur Ollon (Switzerland), August, 1967

Printed in Roure's revue "RECHERCHES" n° 16, December 1967
Printed in Soap, Perfumery & Cometics, September 1968