An artwork that must be inhaled. That fills the air with fragrance and envelops the viewer.
When the 'Smeller' enters the room, they smell the camphor sublimating.
Dragons Brain Perfume
R.A. Donkin has written an illuminating study of one of the longest traded,
and often most highly prized aromatic substances of the pre-industrial World - camphor
The white, flammable commodity is used throughout different regions by people from different cultures.
If gunpowder is a ‘Chinese’ substance, and incense are typically ‘Indian’, camphor would fall under the multi-regional and the multi-cultural.
Upon the first gaze, one might think of it as some sort of a wax or a salt.
On a closer whiff, the smell is obscurely recognised.
The scent of camphor has provoked some strong reactions.
It immediately reminded a gentleman, of the Muslim rites of cleansing the body before burial during his grandmother’s death.
There it was, a word for the fragrance of camphor; of death.
