Books offer rare insights into birds, bugs

Cicada starts the tale

One day, as a "spot clothing wax cicada" strolled across his sketchbook, leaving a trail, he suddenly felt the urge to capture the moment. He created "ink ponds" made of four kinds of dark-colored vegetable juice and watched the bugs crawl through them, then "draw" their journey on blank sheets of paper. In this way, all kinds of crawling creatures－earthworms, ladybugs, spiders, mantises, stink bugs, ants and snails－became painters.

He put their calligraphic creations and ink-wash paintings, together, in the book. "Everything in the world, including every life in nature, has the power to create beauty, and art is all around us," Zhu says. "I had a lot of fun in those five years, more than designing books for human authors."

The book has become a permanent collection of the British Library. Zhu also made woodcut blocks copying some of the characters created by the bugs and has displayed them in various exhibitions, attracting much appreciation from visitors.

The English version has a booklet entitled The Birth of the Language of Bugs, in which the editor says: "Zhu's creations express his inquisitive approach to the world and his belief that every part of nature has a distinctive beauty." There is also a QR code to access more information.