Melanie McDonagh Melanie McDonagh

Stimulating little exhibition: Scent and the Art of the pre-Raphaelites reviewed

The pre-Raphaelites seem to have had a thing for smells

Left: ‘A Saint of the Eastern Church’, 1868, by Simeon Solomon. Right: ‘Medea’, 1889, by Evelyn de Morgan  
issue 23 November 2024

Scent and the Art of the pre-Raphaelites… there’s an obvious problem here: how do you represent one sense by another? Synesthesia is a neurological condition whereby some people do just that: they experience colour when they hear music, or taste words – think of the Revd Sydney Smith describing heaven as eating foie gras to the sound of trumpets.

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