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Aestheticism has often been defined as the religion of beauty, characterised by the celebration of art for art’s sake. Decadence, on the other hand, takes this to an extreme, finding beauty even in ugliness, decay and destruction. Filthy Lucre inspired by James McNeill Whistler’s masterpiece of interior design, the Peacock Room, is perhaps the clearest manifestation of the difference between these two approaches. Aesthetes may run from this room in floods of tears; decadents will love it For in FilthyLucre ,contemporary artist Darren Waterston has recreated Whistler’s original room, but with a difference. In contrast to the Whistler’s blue-green jewel of a dining room, structured by an intricate framework of golden shelves that line the walls (each of which houses an exquisite porcelain vase), in Waterson’s reimagining, utter destruction has taken place. The room looks like a bomb has detonated, or a particularly wild party has taken place. The shelves are crooked and crumbling, the v