When I stepped out of the car in front of our house in Seattle I noticed a wood burning smell, not unpleasant, rather like that of a good campfire (no, really) but I drew no conclusions other than that I was glad I could detect smoke again after living without a sense of smell for two years, and that our neighbors must have added some aromatic chips to their charcoal barbecue pit.
By 8:30 p.m. the sun stood like a Spanish blood orange over the horizon without any of the usual spreading of colors in the sky, a bloody red ball against Wedgwood powder blue. In the iPic I took the sun was golden, not red. The surrounding atmosphere of the globe was reddish pink. It all had an apocalypse-like feel to it. The stillness of the summer evening, the sun like a ball on fire, a photograph that didn't speak of reality, it made me want to scream. A silent scream like the one uttered by the figure in the famous Munch painting. For the longest time people thought Munch had to be crazy for "seeing" such an image, but astronomers discovered changes in the atmosphere due to a volcanic eruption can create the colors Edvard Munch painted. In the sky that is, it doesn't explain the red sun ...
This morning I awoke with the aromatic wood burning smell in my nostrils and remembered last night's red sun and that I've seen something similar in Los Angeles about 35 years ago. Forest fires, I realized, it's summer time and the woods are ablaze. Dreadful, dreadful fires. A good reason to scream.
Which artwork expresses how you feel at times?
This work by Judith van Praag is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License
4 comments:
Sounds like a beautiful day even though the world around may be burning.
A piece of art that describes how I feel at times? Hmmm...Probably the Dali melting clocks. That's the way I usually feel at the end of a busy day.
Hey ya Ciss B, It's very strange, but someone brought up that same painting by Dali in the past two days. I wish I remembered who that was and in regards to what.
Thank you for bringing that amazing image and artist to mind. Time does have a way of slipping away from us, doesn't it!
This post made me feel so alive there with you, Judith. I am happy to read that your sense of smell has returned. Smells are always like instant reminders of experiences in the past to me. Like those transformative stories... :-)
I do not know if fully experiencing smells could be called art. I wish there were such a category though. These days I keep a fragrance bottled up as cologne spray; the smell of honeysuckles (hanımeli in Turkish)-- and this artfully distilled scent manages to describe me right now; happy, creative.
Cara Kari,
You are so right, with the loss of smell we lose many stories as well. To say my heart goes out to all people who have to suffer such a loss, may sound over the top, but being without the smells of the moment can also mean being without certain distinct memories.
Honimeli, eh? That explains your "handle" :-) One of my favorites as well. I've got a honeysuckle bush in the backyard, the flowers are smaller and more Burgundy than the kind we have in the Netherlands.
As for the Art of Experiencing Smells, think of Das Parfum by Süsskind!
Thanks for stopping by Kari and for going to the trouble to find access!
xo Judith
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