An “essence” constitutes the basic, real and unvariable nature of a thing.
However, there is a paradox in that we never really “know” an essence. We can only experience it indirectly, through sense and intuition. In this way, the experience of a perfume and a work or art are similar. When one speaks of an experience of art or the experience of a acent or perfume, one speaks of a distillation or infusion in which one experiences some characteristic property in a concentrated form an essence. Art, at its best, transmits some immaterial, of not spiritual, quality in a short moment, in one place. The acent of a perfume can elicit by aromatic association an immaterial quality, occupying a place in the realm of consciousness in a similary concentrated way. The olfactory senses is one of the most primitive and powerful associations that top deeply into memory and consciousness.

Tishan Hsu
1999