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For the Love of God-Damien Hirst

Chapter · September 2017

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For the Love of God - Damien Hirst

Damien Hirst rose to notoriety as a prominent figure of the yBAs (Young British

Artists) at the end of the 1980’s, and was renowned for wild living, the use of throw

away, found and ready-made materials, and for an attitude that was both

entrepreneurial and oppositional. He is one of the richest artists alive1, a celebrity of

his own making. Both controversial and with an astute business sense he has created

some of the most expensive pieces of art that will pass on to posterity, one of these

pieces is the human platinum cast skull called For the Love of God.

This work is a true cast of a human skull; the teeth were first removed and

professionally cleaned, and the skull itself cut in sections for casting and soldering.

The platinum cast was then set with a total of 8,601 ethically sourced brilliant cut

diamonds, amounting to 1,106,18 carats total weight; the work itself was carried out

by Bentley and Skinner in London2, jewellers appointed by the Queen.

This is the largest diamond piece to be commissioned since the Crown Jewels. The

work was first estimated at £9 million, and Hirst declared this the most expensive

artwork ever produced; it was later offered for sale at £50 million3.

The human skull has been a symbol of death since antiquity, (Hirst himself is

fascinated by skulls and the idea of death, he owns a house in Mexico where he

spends part of the year and participates in the Día de Muertos/Day of the Dead

1 th
Sean O’Hagan, Damien of the Dead, The Guardian, 19 February 2006,
https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2006/feb/19/art, accessed on 17.04.2017
2
For the Love of God, Bentley and Skinner, http://www.bentley-skinner.co.uk/in-the-press/diamond-
skull, accessed on 17.04.2017
3
Terry Smith, What is Contemporary Art?, The University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 2009, pp. 117-
119
celebrations4), it is one of the last things that decay and vanish of a human body

being it so compact, visually significant and robust. Death is an unavoidable aspect of

Damien Hirst – For the Love of God – (2007), Photographed by Prudence Cuming Associates ©
Damien Hirst and Science Ltd. All rights reserved, DACS 2012

human life, it is a subject discussed only when necessary, however centuries ago it

was an embraced reality. Beautiful objects and jewellery were then created to

4
Damien Hirst, ‘The Making of For the Love of God’, 2007,
http://www.damienhirst.com/video/2007/ftlog-interview, accessed on 19.04.2017; Terry Smith,
What is Contemporary Art?, The University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 2009, pp. 118
remind one of mortality and as a warning to prepare one’s self to transcend into the

other realm that possibly awaits us. This transitory nature of life was most often and

effectively illustrated elegantly in jewellery, known now as mourning jewellery, or

‘memento mori’ from Latin, meaning ‘remember you must die’. But the earlier

medieval mourning jewellery with skulls and crossbones were to be understood as a

statement of living, ‘you will be judged in the end, live your life correctly’, it wasn’t

always about death. Some ancient societies also believed skulls were a symbol of

life, not death, as in the honouring of humanity in the flesh and the embodiment of

consciousness5. So on the whole, mourning jewellery can be regarded as an

expression of love rather than of grief, with the purpose of keeping a departed loved

one close to one’s heart; a sentiment that transcends culture and time. Mourning

jewellery gained its peak in popularity with Queen Victoria in the 19th century, where

it became very fashionable at court and in society. It then ended with the advent of

Art Deco and the World Wars, but skulls became popular again in the 21st century,

where fashion brands dictated the new trends.

All of Hirst’s art revolves around death, fear and love: dead butterflies, dismembered

- and not - animal carcasses in formaldehyde; medicine cabinets full of neatly

arranged pills and capsules; physical decay and rebirth by bluebottle larvae flies;

extinguished cigarette butts in giant ashtrays. He is not a surrealist and not menacing

in his art, probably a realist judging by some of his work; but from the moment of

birth one is forever accompanied by the fear of death, which also keeps us alive.

Hence death has always been a popular theme in art; skulls have always been

regarded in philosophical contemplation and were also mentioned by Shakespeare

5
Diana Scarisbrick, Rings: Jewelry of Power, Love and Loyalty, Thames & Hudson, London, 2007, pp.
161-183
in Hamlet. Art causes new emotions in us; the German philosopher Immanuel Kant6

stated in his Aesthetics that the viewer of art should have a physical reaction and

understanding of the art viewed: the artist should be able to convey the

indeterminate and the search of the sublime in creating the artwork over a period of

time, and be able to channel this through the work to the viewer. The aesthetic

experience the artist feels while creating meets in the viewer’s appreciation of the

artwork.

This skull is a glorious celebration of death, it has been said7 about Hirst and this

piece that it represents victory over death because of the materials it is made of,

‘diamonds are forever’ according to De Beers since the 1950’s and platinum is a non-

reactive, precious metal – a so called noble metal -, resistant to corrosion and rarer

than gold8. Diamonds are the hardest material known on earth, and have become a

symbol of eternity and high-end luxury through clever marketing, but meanwhile

have lost some of their allure due to the value associated to them, the controversial

nature of their mining and the ethical responsibility to the miners, which required

the introduction of special laws and certificates for them9.

So these materials used for the skull, because of their physical and chemical

properties, represent a conquest over decay and the temporal, every part of this

piece shines and is resplendent, even the blind eye sockets and the inside of the jaw

are covered in diamonds on its pedestal in its glass case; such a contrast to death,

6
Immanuel Kant, The Critique of Judgement, Oxford University Press, London, 1952
7
Rudi Fuchs, ‘Victory over Decay’, 2007, http://damienhirst.com/texts/20071/jan--rudi-fuchs,
accessed on 19.04.2017
8
More platinum is needed in an alloy than gold, because it is less malleable, harder and more dense
or heavier than gold; where an 18 carat gold alloy would only have 750 parts of gold to the alloy, a
platinum alloy would have 950 parts of platinum
9
The Kimberley Process, https://www.kimberleyprocess.com, accessed on 19.04.2017
which is always represented as dark, gloomy and sinister in domestic interiors. It is

also a triumph of commodity and luxury, ‘...objects…are themselves commodified

and transformed into their own images’10. Like every skull this one also grins at the

viewer with its pale teeth, not hidden by skin, with its ‘third eye’ on the forehead

created from a rare flawless, 56.40 carats, pear shaped, pink diamond, surrounded

by other pear shaped diamonds. This stone is now called the ‘Skull Star’, besides

being the largest diamond to ever have been used in a work of art, it also represents

for Hirst one of the most powerful chakras, a symbol of spiritual perception; the

artwork’s colours are symbolic representations of this third eye. It is ambiguous as a

contemporary work of art and challenges us, by gazing at For the Love of God we

should go beyond our limits and connect to the universe, searching for a deeper

meaning to life.

Bibliography:


Baudrillard Jean, For a Critique of the Political Economy of the Sign, Telos Press, U. S.,
1981

Berger John, Ways of Seeing, Penguin, London, 1972

Foster Hal et al, Art Since 1900, Thames & Hudson, London, 2004

Hopkins, David Art 1945-2000 : After Modern Art, Oxford University Press, Oxford,
2000

Jameson Frederic, ‘The Deconstruction of Expression’, in Art in Theory: 1900-2000,
eds. Charles Harrison and Paul Wood, Blackwell, Oxford, 2003

Kant Immanuel, The Critique of Judgement, Oxford University Press, London, 1952

10
Frederic Jameson, ‘The Deconstruction of Expression’, in Art in Theory: 1900-2000, eds. Charles
Harrison and Paul Wood, Blackwell, Oxford, 2003, p. 1049

Scarisbrick Diana, Rings: Jewelry of Power, Love and Loyalty, Thames & Hudson,
London, 2007

Smith, Terry Contemporary Art: World Currents, Laurence King Publishing Ltd, London,
2011

Smith Terry, What is Contemporary Art?, The University of Chicago Press, Chicago,
2009

Smith Terry et al, Antinomies of Art and Culture: Modernity, Postmodernity,
Contemporaneity, Duke University Press, Durham NC, 2008

Smithson Robert, “A Sedimentation of the Mind: Earth Projects”, in The Collected
Writings Edited by Jack Flam, University of California Press Ltd, London 1996


Bevan Roger, ‘Contemporary Art Smashes the $100 Million Barrier’, The Art
Newspaper, No. 48 June 2004


Blackman Brad, ‘What is The Purpose of Art Today?’,
http://bradblackman.com/purposeofarttoday/, accessed on 17.02.2017

For the Love of God, Bentley and Skinner, http://www.bentley-skinner.co.uk/in-the-
press/diamond-skull, accessed on 17.04.2017

Rudi Fuchs, ‘Victory over Decay’, 2007, http://damienhirst.com/texts/20071/jan--rudi-
fuchs, accessed on 19.04.2017

Hirst, Damien ‘The Making of For the Love of God’, 2007,
http://www.damienhirst.com/video/2007/ftlog-interview, accessed on 19.04.2017

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