Winged Victories

WITH MORE THAN 180,000 SPECIES of butterflies and moths on the planet, it’s no wonder the insects have influenced art and culture in countless ways, as demonstrated in the new illustrated book “Butterfly” (Phaidon).

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To the Aztecs, who stamped the clothes of the dead with butterfly images, they symbolized the fragility of life. To Vincent van Gogh, the peacock moth he painted in 1889 invoked a sense of “mystery and wonder,” the book says. Other artists have us