A fragrance exhibition

A recent visit to the Kunstpalast in Düsseldorf felt nothing like your average museum trip.

- By Reg Henry Scargelli

The exhibition, entitled The Secret Power of Scents, invites visitors to walk through 37 galleries and experience as many as 81 distinct aromas representing more than a thousand years of cultural, religious, scientific and artistic history.

From the moment you enter, the air changes. One room offers the fragrance of myrrh wafting among medieval woodcarvings, evoking incense-laden churches and ancient rituals. In another gallery you press a button and are met with the harsh smell of gunpowder, metallic blood and sulfur-tinged air, a shock meant to conjure the brutality of war and remind us how senses shape our memory more directly than sight alone.