Bestiary :: A Beautiful Death Part III

Inky has really been encouraging me with this recent insect-collecting kick. I’m wondering whether he has ulterior motives. Or maybe he thinks he’ll be able to slide in his collection into the exhibition schedule amongst the rest… I’ll have to prick that particular balloon very soon. I simply can’t have spiders deciding exhibition policy here. And he really doesn’t have a clue about current museological standards. We would be a laughing stock.

We used to have an entire parlour encrusted with butterflies wings when I was a child. Spurred on by its memory, I went looking for more. And found a soupçon.

Great insecticidal shades of Archimboldo! (NB one of MoD’s official patron saints)

Butterfly Utopia retails pictures made from African butterflies picked up dead off the ground… (sure, we’ll believe that…it’s certainly as likely as Fabre’s beetles all having been pre-loved in SE Asian restaurants.) The collages are produced by:

“the fine artisans of Teneyambi who live in the Republic of Central Africa.Each collage is composed of a multitude of delicate butterfly wings, which have been painstakingly arranged to create a beautiful scene or animal. This art work is made exclusively from non-endangered butterfly species that have lived their natural lifespan.”
Butterfly Utopia >>


Vietnamese artists Ho Dac Hiep, “inspired by the charming beauty of butterfly’s colourful wings addicted to artistic creation” creates pictures from butterflies’ wings. The butterflies are caught and injected with formalin to keep intact their colours and dried for two days at an appropriate temperature. Then, Hiep separates each wing of the butterfly, selects and classifies them by their colours. After all stages are finished, he begins to sketch pictures on paper and then meticulously glues the wings down.
Via Vietnam Pictorial ‘Soulful paintings made of butterfly’s wings’ >>

Meanwhile in China :

"The first butterfly pictures sprang up in the 1930s in China's Taiwan Province, and are still developing on the Chinese mainland. Liang Senquan has tried his best to present the most beautiful side of butterfly wings to people. The 60-year-old member of the China Arts and Crafts Association has changed the traditional ways of creating two-dimensional butterfly pictures, initiating a new technique that features bas-relief or 3-D pictures. In 1998, Liang began to study and raise butterflies via artificial propagation. By 1999, he had successfully reproduced the Troides Helena (Linnaeus), Pachliopta Aritolochiae (Fabricius), Danaus Chrysippus (Linnaeus), Catopsilia Pomona F. Crocale (Fabricius) and other butterfly species, supplying sufficient sources for his creations."

Pictured in one of Liang's 3D innovations.
China Culture The Magic of Butterfly Wings >>

Kjell Sandved photographs letters and numbers found naturally on the wings of butterflies. Certainly that sounds less hard on the butterflys than the rest of the pictures here. If you go to his site you can buy posters or read his inspirational story.

Butterfly Alphabet site >>
Via Kircher Society >>