Painted by nature, printed by artists

Abstract

This article brings the 17th-century Dutch painter Otto Marseus van Schrieck and the contemporary German artist Maximilian Prüfer into dialogue. It investigates in particular Marseus’ and Prüfer’s use of butterfly scales as materials and motifs in their works of art. Both artists developed a similar technique of butterfly imprints (lepidochromy), which consists of transferring the scales of real butterflies onto another surface. The imprints thus combine medium with representation and the object being represented. The artists used a variety of animal substances to make their artworks, some still visible, some not, and gathered living animals to depict after life or to work with in other ways. Knowledge of and interest in natural history inform the work of both artists but their reflections on human relationships with other animals and with ‘nature’ differ.