‘The Cherry Blossoms are about beauty and life and death. They’re extreme – there’s something almost tacky about them,’ says Damien Hirst, describing the series of paintings created for his first ...

How would you describe Japanese cherry blossoms - ‘sakura’? A pretty pink flower? A sign of spring? A symbol of Japan? While all of these statements are true, they don't quite paint the whole picture.

Cherry blossoms are pretty easy to distinguish, aren’t they? Should you find yourself in a Japanese garden and see a tree covered in flowers with five petals and a pink color, those must be the fabled ...