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Circle Half-Circle

Pastel on (thin) paper
25 3/8 x 22 inches

Sensorium: Scented Visions
The Science of Smell

Olfaction is often viewed as more subjective and variable than our other senses. We frequently use vocabulary from other sensory domains to characterize smells. Does the color green, as used by Corrie McCallum for instance, evoke a particular smell? Are certain scents green in their character? Compounding the apparent variability of smell is the fact that different animals, such as Eugene Thomason’s Pointer Dog, can have radically different olfactory capabilities. Some of our assumptions regarding the subjectivity of smell may be inherited from the ancient world. The Greek philosopher Plato, for example, denigrated odors as unworthy of serious scrutiny by characterizing them as nothing more than “half-formed objects,” a description evocatively represented in Will Henry Stevens’s Circle Half-Circle.