68

Beetles and humans

a surge of interest in Egypt. The Art Nouveau and

Art Deco movements incorporated stylized scarab

motifs into art, jewelry, and architecture, and

Egyptian-style scarab beetles, often with wings

outstretched, are a common feature of buildings

of that era. Today, visitors to London Zoo can see

a much more realistic scarab sculpture, a modern

bronze statue of a pair of Kheper (Scarabaeinae)

with a dung ball, emphasizing the essential role

dung beetles play in the African savanna.

Beetles feature prominently in still-life

paintings of the Dutch Golden Age (1609–1713),

particularly those of the Vanitas style, where

symbolic objects remind viewers of their mortality

and the fleeting nature of worldly goods and

pleasures. Stag beetles Lucanus cervus were most

frequently used, and receive a symbolism similar

to that of the beetle’s evening flight in literature,

representing the end of day and, by extension, the

end of life. An opulent table laid with food and

drink was often juxtaposed with a single dead

beetle, skull, or snuffed-out candle, as a memento

mori. Stag beetles were probably popular because

of their impressive size and menacing jaws, and it

is consistent with the theme of the paintings that

they were obviously dead.

Albrecht Dürer painted his famous stag beetle

in 1505; at a time when nature was little valued,

such a choice of subject was in the true spirit of

the Renaissance. Although defiantly and vibrantly

posed, the articulation is slightly unnatural,

suggesting the model was dead. The use of actual

dead beetles in art has a long history, especially in

India and Indochina, where beetle elytra decorate

hangings and muslin dresses. This inspired the

ART

Since the dawn of representative art, people have

drawn the objects and creatures with which they

share their environment. While large prey animals

dominate the earliest cave paintings and rock art,

there are also some representations of insects,

sometimes interpreted as beetles. Occasionally,

beetles have featured in mythology, or have gained

allegorical significance. A famous example,

discussed on pages 72–73, is the ancient Egyptian

veneration of scarab beetles, paintings and

carvings of which adorn the pyramids and

sarcophagi of the pharaohs.

There was a revival of such scarab imagery

in the 1920s in Europe and the USA, when the

discovery of Tutankhamun’s tomb in 1922 led to

left | Illuminated page from Model Book

of Calligraphy (1561–96) by Bocskay and

Hoefnagel, showing an accurate European

rhinoceros beetle Oryctes nasicornis.