Albrecht Dürer

                                      

A Stag Beetle by Albrecht Dürer, 1505

Dürer was one of the first renaissance artists to include and give centre stage to insects in his paintings; previously insects were usually used as symbols rather than study objects in their own right.
Dürer wrote:
It is indeed true that art is omnipresent in nature, and the true artist is he who can bring it out.