Transcendence – Edmond Roudnitska
We are all of us a mixture of the mundane and the divine. There are those of us however who seem to possess more of the celestial spark, and who through some extraordinary gift or ability, manage to transcend their humanity and transport us with them, beyond the physical plane.
I recently had the supreme honor of attending a private rehearsal of the New World Symphony with the renowned cellist Yo-Yo Ma. As I sat there watching him, I was struck by the unique balance of being and essence that is Mr. Ma. Watching him perform was a revelation. He simply functioned artistically on a different level than any of the other supremely talented musicians in the room. He had no sheet music to reference, and yet his performance was flawless. His absorption in the piece, a beautiful cello concerto by Schumann, was so intense that he was completely unaware of his surroundings. His body seemed to simply be the agent of some divine sound. Indeed, were it not for the fact that his shirt was wrinkled and that he was sweating profusely after the performance, I would have sworn he was not human at all.
Much in the way music can touch our soul, scents can similarly evoke strong feelings which transport us. And there are those perfumers who have the innate ability to weave accords into a symphony of the senses. One such nose was Edmond Roudnitska.
Edmond Roudnitska was born in 1905 in Nice, which lies along the southeastern coast of France. While Nice is less than an hour from Grasse, which was the perfume capital at the time, Mr. Roudnitska started out in the world of perfumery with no formal education. Despite his lack of traditional training, he would prove to be a virtuoso in the truest sense of the word. Mr. Roudnitska was known for his methodical yet imaginative approach to fragrance and is credited with the creation of some of the most beautiful and groundbreaking perfumes in history.
In addition to his innate vocation as a master nose, most inspiring was his dedication to fragrance as a form of art. He strongly believed in the importance of balance between the beauty of a creation and its profitability, and that above all else, the art should not be compromised for the profit. To this end, he founded Art et Parfum in 1946, a sort of perfume creation and research lab. In addition to his abilities as a perfumer, Mr. Roudnitska was a productive author, sharing both technical and ideological views on perfume, which he clearly regarded as a serious art form. I shudder to think what Mr. Roudnitska would think of the current environment, when more fragrances are released in a month than he released in all his lifetime. The very act of remembering this great creator is a testament to his success.
“L’œuvre d’art n’est pas conçue par le sens mais par l’esprit de l’homme.” The masterpiece is not conceived by the senses – rather by the spirit of the man. (Edmond Roudnitska, translation mine)
