Rebecca Flint Instagram – It’s all about the details 🔍 if you walk past, you may miss it. But stand and stay for a while, and you start to notice little creatures dwelling between the flowers. Is that a beautiful leaf, or a butterfly’s wing?⁣ ⁣ These captivating details continue to draw the viewer in. Still life paintings from the mid-millennium captured the beauties of the natural world, and all its creatures, and looking deeper still, it’s further intriguing to imagine the meanings these insects could convey.⁣ ⁣ A butterfly, freed from her cocoon, represents one beautiful yet sorrowful stage of the divine cycle of life – and meanwhile, the caterpillar, another, more hardy and earthen, less beautiful, but closer to birth than death. ⁣ ⁣ Spiders, symbolic of fear and sorrow, creep across the painted pages too, along with beetles (great jewels of nature).⁣ ⁣ One thing’s for certain – a snail is certainly slow enough to make an excellent subject for still life.⁣ ⁣ ⁣ ⁣ 🦋 #artdetails #classicalartdetails #natureartdetails #artcloseup #closeuppainting #fineartdetail #arthistory #historyofart #historyart #arthistory101 #artandhistory #arthistorynerd #classicalpainting #freshflowerarrangement #arrangementflower #17thcenturyart #17thcentury #flowerstilllife #painterly #botanicaldaydreams #dutchstilllife #janvanhuysum #rachelruysch #mariavanoosterwijck #1600sart #1600s #tulipmania #floralfriday #snails #gastropod National Gallery