Peacocks & Greedy Patrons: Visiting V&A’s Filthy Lucre Exhibition

Yet Darren Waterston’s contemporary interpretation, once the enthralled viewer looks closer, has a sinister dimension. The gilded shelves are splintered. The vases cracked. Debris and fallen ceramics glint in the corners. The raven-haired siren in the portrait has turned her head away, we see nothing of her face. The effect is uncanny, and sorrowful.

The 19^th century fever for the decorative arts had multiple roots. Queen Victoria’s stifling reign was one, it was a culture that promoted intimidating formality. The British Empire’s material wealth, network of global links and rare opportunities for cultural enrichment also played a vital part. In a way, the Aesthetic Movement was a product of a society-wide superiority complex. And Whistler’s original Peacock Room was an example in how far artistic ego could go. He dubbed his masterpiece a ‘harmony in blue and gold’ but ironically it sparked a bitter feud with his patron, the shipping magnate Frederick Leyland, who had never commissioned or approved the design and was thoroughly displeased with it. A nasty row took place, with Leyland refusing to pay the artist’s fee.

Waterston’s modern experiment goes one step further, challenging the tensions between monied patron and passionate creative. There is a sense of beauty and threat. Fragility of art and strength of material wealth. It’s an unabashed shrine to the artist’s ideas, funded by a fortune made in big business. It is a wistful ode to a lavish lifestyle, and potentially a social commentary on today’s widening gap in wealth distribution (a situation that is nearing the terrifying division of wealth which dominated the Victorian age). Is it purely a historical display of interior design? Or a beautiful front to shame increasing capitalist greed?

Whistler defended his work to his angry client by saying, ‘Ah, I have made you famous. My work will live when you are forgotten. Still, perchance, in the dim ages to come to you will be remembered as the proprietor of the Peacock Room.’ And, despite the arrogance, he was right. The Peacock Room had an irresistible draw to which Waterston has added a valuable, thought-provoking layer over a century later.

Ultimately, Filthy Lucre has a magnetic aura that cannot be quantified, or put into words, though we have tried. The only thing to do about this installation, which the V&A aptly describe as ‘a magnificent ruin crumbling’, is to experience it yourself. To find out what it will make you feel you’ll have to visit the Peacock Room and do what all art wants you to do. Look at it carefully.