Erika Wicky

My research is dedicated to the conceptions, uses, practices and representations of olfaction in 19th-century France. It aims to understand the specific issues concerning the sense of smell in relationship to the world at this time. From the perspective of cultural history and historical anthropology of the senses, this research analyses the knowledge of, practices in relation to, objects associated with, techniques, lexicon and representations of olfaction in order to highlight the main conceptions prevailing in 19th-century France. During my residence, I expect to deepen knowledge into specific aspects of this broad research project by focusing on the visual representations of olfaction.

Through a series of case studies, this project seeks to understand the specific issues of visual culture in the expression and diffusions of the conceptions attached to the sense of smell, including its strong links with realism. Analysing 19th-century French visual culture from the perspective of the sense of olfaction will allow us to understand further the visual strategies developed in order to represent invisible smells. This project will lead to studying representations of material signs of invisible smells, such as thick smoke, but also objects of decorative art associated with perfume often depicted especially in orientalist and historicist painting. But all these representations of olfaction not only express their contemporary views on olfaction, they also contribute to building these conceptions in a specific way. Analysing visual culture from the perspective of olfactory studies will allow us to take a fresh look at well-known images. It will also emphasize the importance of less well-known material such as academic paintings or a large number of advertising images.

This research will also take place in the context of a broader reflection on the historiography of the senses. Until now, olfactory studies, a new field of research, essentially analysed textual sources such as literature. In fact, finding accurate sources is one of the biggest challenges faced by historians of the senses. Thus, this research project will contribute to the historiography of the senses by showing how visual culture can be included among its sources. Moreover, this research project seeks to develop specific tools for the analysis of the iconography of olfaction in 19th-century visual culture. Connecting the decorative arts and cultural history of the time with visual interpretation, this project will provide future researchers with keys to understanding the allusions to olfaction in 19th-century visual culture. Finally, studying visual culture, and more specifically visual arts, from the perspective of smell, will allow us to draw the boundaries of a new periodization, creating alternatives to the periodization based on the history of hygiene, which has been prevalent in the history of smell since Corbin.