Insect aesthetics – long viewed as pests, in the 16th century bugs became beautiful

More than a century before Carl Linnaeus set out to categorise the natural world, the 16th-century Flemish painter and polymath Joris Hoefnagel began to render the creatures around him in unprecedented detail. As the US video essayist Evan Puschak (aka The Nerdwriter) explores in this short, Hoefnagel’s project was quietly revolutionary – particularly in his keen interest in insect life. Pairing his thoughtful analysis with some of Hoefnagel’s most striking illustrations, Puschak lays out why 16th-century Antwerp, the artist’s home, was the perfect confluence of time and place for his innovative melding of science and art.