Лако-красочные материалы — производство

DAVID PYBUS

In chemistry also, we are now conscious of the continuity of man’s intellectual effort; no longer does the current generation view the work of its forerunners with a disdainful lack of appreciation; andfar from claiming infallibility, each successive age recognizes the duty of developing its heritage from the past.

August Kekule von Stradonitz (1829-1896)

The discovery, exploitation and use of fragrant materials began with an elite few and had religious connotations. The very word ‘perfume’ is derived from the Latin per fumum, meaning ‘by’ or ‘through’ smoke, as it was with the use of burning incense that the prayers of the ancients were transported to the heavens for the contemplation of the Gods. Then came the priest-kings, and a wider audience, though still very select, of pharaohs, emperors, conquerors and monarchs with their attendant courtesans and alchemists, when use of perfume took on a hedonistic mantle as well as a spiritual one. By the twentieth century the combination of chemistry and the industrial revolution brought the revelation of perfume to the rest of humankind.

The great world religions of Islam, Christianity, Buddhism, Hindu­ism, Shintoism and Zoroastroism employ fragrance in pursuance of their faiths. Thus, religious and pleasurable pursuits have been the main drives in the phenomenal growth of perfume usage throughout the centuries. With the dawning of civilization, the use of fragrances developed within the four great centres of culture in China, India,

Egypt and Mesopotamia, and was extended in the sophisticated societies of Greece, Palestine, Rome, Persia and Arabia.

The seven ages of ‘aromatic’ man in Western culture began when Crusaders brought back three magical gifts from the East to the Dark Ages of Europe, which had ‘not bathed for a thousand years’. Delicate aromatics, distilled alcohol and refined glass were the physical mani­festations of thousands of years of alchemical research. The three together, a beautiful smell, a solvent to extend it and a bottle to conserve this ‘gift from the Gods’ were gladly accepted in the medieval West, and their use blossomed through the six ages of Chivalry, Alchemy, Discovery, Revolution, Empire, and Fashion.