Described as the “discipline of disciplines”, which advocates against displaying emotion, be it joy or anger, Control is both the last of Nitobe Inazō’s Eight Virtues of Bushidō, the Samurai code of ethics, and the eighth print from Damien Hirst’s “garish, messy and fragile” series, ‘The Virtues’ (H9, 2021) series.

‘Control’ 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 ‘Courage’ is a recognisable section of a ‘Cherry Blossom’ 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 light blue background, thick, tactile, bubble gum-like and vibrantly coloured painted spots climbing up the sprawling tree branches. Its petals, at times appearing more like dynamic splashes of paint than flowers, hover in space, seemingly frozen in time as they fall to the ground.

‘Control’, 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.