Optical Scentsibilities: Memento Mori

Dior Poison "memento mori" ad, "all is vanity"

How could the idea of mortality be tied to perfume? There seems to exist a plethora of references to Eros and Thanatos in scented matters. From the ancient practice of accompanying the dead to their resting place with aromatic incense and the fragrant burials in Egypt's pyramids to the annointing of the body for weddings in India with comparable scented essences, fragrance holds a key to matters of mortality. Rituals using it aim either to somehow "defeat" it (marriage and therefore procreation) or to pay their respects to the unavoidable.
But it is rare that a perfume company uses images of death to advertise their products; in this case Poison by Christian Dior.

You don't get what I am talking about? Squint. Now look again with your vampire eyes...The image of a skull is looking back at you through the mirror, the bottles and the torso of the woman sitting in front of her dresser. See?

Images of skulls abound in art and are indeed a premium means of delivering meanings that have to do with the subconcious. From the skull and bones flag of the pirate ship to more sophisticated paradigms, like this one from surrealist Salvador Dali, skulls are there to remind us that nothing lasts forever and the inevetability of death is the only centainty in life.
Of course Dali chose to depict it through naked women forming the parts of the skull, which is an allusion to the other half of the equlibrium of Eros and Thanatos. The regeneristic power of sexual desire and copulation is man's only means of transcedenting death. This of course lies at the root of ancient mysteries and rituals, such as the Orphic or Eleusinian Mysteries in ancient Greece.

During the Middle Ages, at a time when general lack of education swerved the emphasis of ecclesiastical catechy into iconography rather than scripture, images of horrible monstrosity became almost normal in the abodes of the holy. One only has to take a look at the gargoyles of late-Gothic churches across Europe to ascertain this. In this environment the notion of Memento Mori flourished; a typically simple depiction of a skull making an appearence somewhere along a painting, a psalm book, or a tapestry.

The habit persisted through later years and this painting of Jean de Dinteville (depicted at left) by Holbein is testament to it. If you look at it from the left and squint enough, you see that at the bottom of it there is an elongated form of something that does not seem like anything much, but in fact is a symbolic skull.

And how would this culminate in the above Dior Poison advertisement? Simple: the name Poison lends itself to imagery of Thanatos, through its connotations of its meaning and the fairy tale poisoned apple like its bottle shape suggests. Apple, a fruit full of its own connotations of sin and corruption!
Perhaps the advertisers want us to remember that just as their perfume can symbolically be lethal (and in copious amounts I am sure it can be!), it can also put a spin into the other half of the eternal duo: Eros.

Pics from moiillusions.com and nationalgallery.org.uk. Thanks to Sillage for bringing the initial Poison ad to my attention