Fragrance is visually suggested in images of daydreaming figures smelling flowers or burning incense, enhancing the sensory aura of ‘art for art’s sake’. Scent was also implied in Victorian painting to evoke hedonism – pleasure in exquisite sensations – and a preoccupation with beauty; or to reflect the Victorian vogue for synaesthesia (evoking one sense through another) and the penchant for art, like scent, to evoke moods and emotions. [...] Visitors to the exhibition will be able to participate in an optional scent experience that will enliven the scents suggested in certain paintings.

— Scent and the Art of the Pre-Raphaelites opens Friday at The Barber Institute of Fine Arts in Birmingham, England.