Ouroboros - Butterfly Wall Sculpture

Swallowtail Britannicus

Pieter Brueghel the Elder, The Fall of the Rebel Angels, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Ouroboros is one of my limited edition representational wall sculptures. A butterfly wall sculpture depicting, in blackened steel and patinated copper, Britain’s largest native butterfly, Swallowtail Britannicus.

Butterfly symbolism

But what about the name you ask? Well, Ouroboros is an ancient symbol depicting a serpent or dragon eating its own tail. So one connection to the Swallowtail is easily grasped. Another is that both are often interpreted as a symbols of the never ending cycle of life, death and rebirth. In addition, butterflies are often said to signify beauty, freedom, creativity, transformation and the ephemeral nature of life.

A dark side?

But could the blackened steel body and wing veins of this butterfly wall sculpture hint at a less positive aspect of the butterfly’s character? A depiction of a fallen angel with the wings of a swallowtail butterfly in Pieter Bruegel the Elder’s The Fall of the Rebel Angels would suggest so. Equally the butterfly winged devils of The Garden of Earthly Delights by Hieronymus Bosch.

Hieronymus Bosch, The Garden of Earthly Delights
**English:** right panel, Detail: green person (mid-right). Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

The most likely explanation is an apparent reputation, gained in the middle ages, for being evil spirits with a penchant for milk and butter thievery. For example, take their Old German names of botterlicker, molkendieb and milchdieb.

Stranger than fiction

But the biological reality of these amazing creatures is far stranger and more fascinating than the symbolism applied to them:

And just so you know: insects don’t necessarily only have eyes on their head. One species of Swallowtail butterfly has eyes on its penis! These help the male to position himself correctly during mating. The female also has eyes on her rear end, which she uses to check she is laying her eggs in the right place.
Extraordinary Insects, Anne Sverdrup-Thygeson

Patination techniques

Colour	Method
Green	Brush stippled copper nitrate applied to heated copper
Red	Boiling immersion in a copper sulphate solution
Pink/purple	Quenching from red heat