Damien Hirst, H9-4 Politeness

Laminated Giclée print on aluminum composite panel

47.25 x 37.75 in | 120 x 96 cm

Ed of 1549

According to Nitobe Inazō, at the centre of Politeness, one of the Eight Virtues of Bushidō, the Samurai code of ethics, is modesty, compliance and respect for others' feelings. It imparts grace onto manners and acts as an elegant expression of sympathy. That is, Politeness requires one to “weep with those who weep and rejoice with those who rejoice” It is after this virtue that Damien Hirst named his fourth work from his ‘The Virtues’ (H9, 2021) series.

“Garish, messy and fragile”, ‘Politeness’ captures a detail from one of Hirst’s immersive ‘Cherry Blossoms’ (2018-20) canvases. A composition, monumental in size, is scaled down to both offer an up-close view of the artist’s practice and to further play on the idea of the possibilities and limits of human perception. In ‘Politeness’ is a recognisable section of a ‘Cherry Blossoms’ canvas only partially viewed, insinuating that viewers are seeing the composition through a window or perhaps from inside the tree itself. It captures against a vibrant blue background, thick spots rendered like a rainbow of “flashes” of paint which climb up the sprawling tree branches. Sparsely populating the branches, at times the bubble gum-like petals hover in space, apparently frozen in time as they fall to the ground.

‘Politeness’, an expressionistic image which oscillates between abstraction and figuration, conveys along the way Hirst’s perennial interest in the notions of life and death through the transient cherry blossom. However, the print appears more vital than morbid, celebrating the possibilities of vibrant, sensuous colour.