Product Description

A presentation of close-up studio photographs of one of the most varied and beautiful species on the planet: the beetle. The range of shapes and colours featured should be a source of inspiration to professional designers and a visual wonder to the general reader. As the introduction explains, beetles were deified in Ancient Egypt, used for necklaces and brooches by the Amazonian Indians of Peru, and worn live, tethered to gold chains, by fashionable ladies in Victorian times. The photographs here provide evidence of why beetles have been such a valuable commodity to various cultures.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1083791 in Books
• Published on: 2001-01
• Original language: English
• Binding: Hardcover
• 1 pages

From Library Journal
Intended as a visual introduction to the beauty and diversity of beetles, this volume is a photographic study of a small sampling of some of the world's most beautiful insects. A seven-page introduction to beetle varieties, folklore, collecting, and how we humans have regarded beetles over the centuries precedes the 79 full-color plates. The photographs are striking in their much-larger-than-life portrayals of beetle colors, patterns, textures, and body designs, and the solid white backgrounds focus the reader's attention entirely on the insects themselves. The authors are artists rather than entomologists and approach their subjects accordingly. Photographer Beckmann is responsible for the eye-catching images, and Kaspin, a painter, wrote the introduction. Both have been involved in jewelry design, which helps explain their interest in these particular creatures. This book is a good choice for art and design collections in public and academic libraries. For a science-based yet very readable introduction to beetles with considerable text to accompany the attractive color photography, see Arthur Evans & others' An Inordinate Fondness for Beetles (LJ 4/15/97). William H. Wiese, Iowa State Univ. Lib., Ames
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

Houston Chronicle, December 2001
“Paul Beckmann’s Living Jewels is one of the season’s happiest marriages of science and art.”

Library Journal, February 2002
“The photographs are striking in their much-larger-than-life portrayals of beetle colors, patterns, textures, and body designs.”

Customer Reviews

A work of art
This is a beautiful and unique book; the photography and printing are outstanding, and the images of the beetles are simultaneously gorgeous and bizarre.

Amazing. Nature exceeds fantasy.
This book contains a most colorful collection of creatures.I had never realized that the family of beetles encompassed such variety in colors, shapes, and forms. As an artist, I would recommend this book to anyone who delights in images celebrating the bizarre and the beautiful in nature.

Amazing. Nature exceeds fantasy.
This book contains a most colorful collection of creatures.I had never realized that the family of beetles encompassed such variety in colors, shapes, and forms. As an artist, I would recommend this book to anyone who delights in images celebrating the bizarre and the beautiful in nature.