Control – H9-8 (The Virtues)

Referencing Impressionism, Pointillism and Action Painting, the Cherry Blossoms are about the spontaneous joy of spring. Damien Hirst said “Cherry Blossoms are about beauty and life and death. They’re extreme – there’s something hopeful yet hopeless about them. They’re art but taken from nature. They’re about desire and how we process love and why we need it, but also these prints are about the momentary, the insane transience of beauty – a tree in full crazy blossom against a clear blue sky. How can you argue with that? It’s been so good to make these prints, to be completely lost in colour for a while. Blossoms are optimistic and bright yet fragile, just like we are and I hope that The Virtues can remind us to always try and get the most from life.”

Intellectual superiority was esteemed, however, Inazō Nitobe notes that a samurai was ‘essentially a man of action’ and explains that much of his education was dominated by subjects such as fencing, jiujutsu, horsemanship, calligraphy and ethics. Character corresponds with Control or Self-Control, which Nitobe calls the ‘discipline of disciplines’. It includes the notion that it is unmanly to portray emotion, and that he who shows neither joy nor anger on his face is of strong character.