The Scent of Flowers at Night
“I sincerely believe that the painting is made as much by the viewer as by the artist”… “It’s not the object that counts, but the experience that results from it. It is through the magic of the eye, through interactivity, that an object becomes a work of art”
The Scent of Flowers at Night is a novel by the French-Moroccan writer Leïla Slimani. Through this novel, the author interweaves different types of art, such as philosophy, poetry, painting and literature, and traces the process of literary creation that almost every writer faces, as well as, other artists like painters, poets or sculptors.
Slimani uses the model of biography as a starting point and leads us through the novel via her personal experiences. The process of artistic creation is the cornerstone of the novel, it is the thread that the reader follows through every page of the book.
The heroine (herself) is a writer who is invited by her publisher to spend a night in a museum. The idea seems unappealing, but the need for self-isolation seems ideal for the writer who struggles with a lack of time to write. She seems to be evoking Virginia’s Wolf novel, A Room of One’s Own, through the following statement: ‘A woman needs a space for herself in order to have a safe and intimate place to create’.
For Slimani, her home and the museum are small spaces that confine her, but without freedom and her time is always limited. These two constraints do not favour creative awakening.
The solitude she seeks is the one that will bring her face to face with herself, with her deepest emotions which will allow her to create. This night at the museum could be a good opportunity to find some inspiration or, at least, to isolate herself from the world.
Nevertheless, this experience exceeds her expectations by taking her on a journey into her past through contact with the artworks she encounters, as she wanders through the museum. Furthermore, the encounter with these different artists through their works of art allows her to have an inner dialogue with them and inspires her to write. It seems to give her the possibility to confront her past and her feelings. Her pen is her paintbrush and her notebook her canvas.
By starting the chapter with ‘I resume my walk through the Punta della Dogana, fascicle in hand’, in a certain way she invites you, as an spectator, to admire different artists and be inspired by their artworks. Describing and commenting the exhibition named Luogo e segni (Place and Signs) in different circumstances of her life, allow us to see that contemporary art is not easy to understand but easy to feel or not to feel. Sounds, images, words, colours and even unexpected scenarios can make you travel to other places and make you remember forgotten situations of your life. The reader can feel the history of the place, Punta della Dogana, through her storytelling.
She invites you to see how these 36 artists through their pieces ‘explore the relationship between humans and nature, the artist's ability to convey the poetry of the world, the memory of items, and the existence of ghosts and the dead among us’. Among them all, the Lebanese poet and painter Etel Adnan stands as the most striking figure.
The poetry of Etel Adnan flows from her deep inspiration drawn from nature. Light and shadow, the wind, the ever-changing weather—these elements weave the guiding thread of the exhibition. At the same time, this atmosphere allows one to appreciate the Punta della Dogana, a modern architectural marvel that preserves the building’s past while remaining intimately connected to nature, its setting poised at the very edge of the water.
The finest way to immerse oneself in art is through art itself. Slimani once spoke of art as a distant, almost untouchable realm, yet her story bridges that gap, drawing its beauty within reach. I wholeheartedly recommend this novel—a work that will nourish your spirit and invite you to see and appreciate art from a fresh, illuminating perspective.
by Io Roussel