Butterfly (pronounced buht-er-flahy)
(1) Any of numerous diurnal insects of the order
Lepidoptera, characterized by clubbed antennae, a slender body, and large,
broad, often conspicuously marked wings which are typically closed when the
creature is at rest (the adjectival form is lepidopteran).
(2) A person who moves effortlessly from one social
situation to another, usually as “social butterfly”.
(3) Someone perceived as unserious and (originally)
dressed gaudily; someone flighty and unreliable; a bolter (common between the
seventeenth & nineteenth centuries; now archaic).
(4) In competitive swimming, a racing breaststroke, using
a dolphin kick, in which the swimmer brings both arms out of the water in
forward, circular motions.
(5) In carpentry, as butterfly joint (or wedge), a type
of joint or inlay used permanently to hold together two or more pieces of timber,
either as something aesthetic (usually with a contrasting color of timber) or
merely functional (also known as the bow tie, dovetail key, Dutchman joint, or
Nakashima joint).
(6) In sculpture, an X-shaped support attached to an
armature.
(7) As butterfly arm, the swinging brackets of a
butterfly table.
(8) In film editing, a screen of scrim, gauze, or similar
material, for diffusing light.
(9) In cooking or the display of food, to spread open in
halves what is being prepared, resembling the wings of a butterfly (the chef’s
term being butterflied).
(10) In financial trading, the simultaneous purchase and
sale of traded call options, at different exercise prices or with different
expiry dates, on a stock exchange or commodity market; historically a
combination of four options of the same type at three strike prices giving
limited profit and limited risk.
(11) In medical & surgical dressings, a prepared
bandage or the use of surgical tape, cut into thin strips and placed across an
open wound in a manner which resembles the open wings of a butterfly, holding
it closed.
(12) In mathematics and geometry, any of several plane
curves that look like a butterfly and known as butterfly curves (transcendental
& algebraic).
(13) In chaos theory and the discipline of alternate (counter-factual)
history, as butterfly effect, a single event or random change in an aspect of
the timeline seemingly unrelated to the primary point of divergence, resulting
from the event.
(14) In automotive design (also used on certain airframes
and nautical vessels) a style of door hinged from the A pillars (the windscreen
frame).
(15) In engineering, a term applied to a number of
fittings (butterfly valve, butterfly clamp, butterfly nut) with some
resemblance to the open wings of a butterfly.
(16) As a motif, a widely use shape in fields such as
architecture, stained glass, visual art and industrial design.
Pre 1000: From the Middle English buterflie, butturflye & boterflye, from the Old English butorflēoge, buttorflēoge & buterflēoge. It was cognate with the Dutch botervlieg and the German Butterfliege (butterfly). The construct was (with variations was butere (butter) + fly. Etymologists note alternative origins for the name. Either (1) it was first applied to creatures with wings of a notably yellowish hue (perhaps the dominant or single species of the type in an area) or (2) as a response to the belief that butterflies ate milk and butter or (3) the first element may have originally been butor- (beater), a mutation of bēatan (to beat), a reference to the movement of the wings. The idea of the fragile things as thieves of milk and butter is supported by similar instances in other European languages including the German Molkendieb (butterfly (literally “whey thief”) and the Low German Botterlicker (butterfly (literally butter-licker) & Bottervögel (butterfly (literally “butter-fowl”). There was also the notion they excreted a butter-like substance, memorably expressed in the Dutch boterschijte (butterfly (literally “butter-shitter”). Most memorable however is the explanation in the tales of the Brothers Grimm (die Brüder Grimm, Jacob (1785–1863) and Wilhelm (1786–1859)) in which witches disguised themselves as butterflies. The early forms in Middle English superseded the non-native Middle English papilion (butterfly) borrowed from the Old French. Butterfly is a noun & adjective, butterflied is a verb & adjective and butterflying is a verb. The noun plural is butterflies.
Anatomy of the butterfly valve (left), butterfly crochet (centre) & butterfly bandage (right).
Butter was from the Middle English buter & butter, from the
Old English butere, from the
Proto-West Germanic buterā, from the Latin
būtȳrum, from the Ancient Greek
βούτῡρον (boútūron)
(cow cheese), the construct being βοῦς (boûs) (ox,
cow) + τῡρός (tūrós) (cheese). Fly was
from the Middle English flye & flie, from the Old English flȳġe & fleoge (a fly,
a winged insect), from the Proto-Germanic fleugǭ (a fly) & fleugon (flying insect), from the primitive Indo-European plewk- (to fly). It was
cognate with the Scots flee, the Saterland
Frisian Fljooge, the German Low
German Fleeg, the Danish flue, Norwegian Bokmål flue
& Norwegian Nynorsk fluge, the Swedish
fluga and the Icelandic fluga, the Old Saxon fleiga, the Old Norse fluga, the Middle Dutch vlieghe, the Dutch vlieg, the Old High German flioga
and the German Fliege (fly (literally
"the flying (insect))). The Old
English fleogende (flying) was from
the primitive Indo-European root pleu-
(to flow).
Butterfly was applied first to people circa 1600, originally in reference to vain and gaudy attire, an allusion to often bright and varied colors of a butterfly's wings. By 1806 it had become a class-based put-down referencing a transformation from a lower social class to something better, invoking the idea of progression from sluggish caterpillar to graceful butterfly (essentially a synonym for bounder). The reference to flitting tendencies (from one interest, occupation etc) dates from 1873 and the social butterfly (one who moves effortlessly between social encounters and events) emerged in the 1920s. The swimming stroke was first defined in 1935. As a general descriptor (butterfly agave, butterfly ballot, butterfly fish, butterfly flower, butterfly plant, butterfly bomb, butterfly keyboard, butterfly chair, butterfly ray, butterfly shell etc), it’s applied wherever the resemblance to the open wings appears compelling. In culture, the butterfly tends to be more admired than caterpillar which is an earlier stage of their development, the lovely creatures often appearing on fabrics used for clothing and furnishings.
Native to the forests of Central and South America, the Blue Morpho is one of the world’s largest butterflies. The wings are bright blue with lacy black edges, the result of light reflecting off microscopic scales on the back of their wings. Lovely though the blue appears, it’s often not seen because the underside of this butterfly’s wing is a dull brown which provides a camouflage against predators. When the wings are closed as the Blue Morpho sits on a tree, it blends in well.
Butterfly valves came into use in the late 1700s and have been popular since for their ease of manufacture, simplicity of operation and low maintenance. The butterfly nut appeared in 1869 although in some markets it usually called the wing nut; interestingly, the similar fastener with a male thread is known as a wing screw or wing bolt but apparently never a butterfly screw or bolt, presumably because the delicate butterfly is thought emblematically female. The phrase “Who breaks a butterfly upon a wheel?” is from Alexander Pope's (1688-1744) Epistle to Dr Arbuthnot" (1735). The allusion is to "breaking on the wheel", a form of torture in which victims had their long bones broken by an iron bar while tied to a Catherine wheel, the idea a critique of excessive effort or deployment of resources to solve a simple problem; the less confronting phrase “sledgehammer to crack a nut” means the same thing. The phrase “butterflies in the stomach” is a descriptive reference to the mild stomach spasms induced by anxiety and dates from 1908. The butterfly effect is the most celebrated idea from (the somewhat misleadingly named) chaos theory, introduced in the 1972 paper Predictability: Does the Flap of a Butterfly's Wings in Brazil Set Off a Tornado in Texas? by US academic meteorologist Edward Lorenz (1917–2008). Lorenz had developed the theory based on his observations in the early 1960s (in one of the earliest big-data models) that a tiny change in one variable (one of a dozen numbers representing atmospheric conditions) had an extraordinary effect upon long-term outcomes.
1966 Dodge Polara convertible (left) and 1966 Dodge Monaco 500 two-door hardtop (right).
The use of the butterfly motif in industrial design in 1967 became a footnote in legal history in the trial of the boxers Rubin "Hurricane" Carter (1937–2014) & John Artis (1946-2021) for a triple murder committed at the Lafayette Bar and Grill in Paterson, New Jersey. Evidence presented by the prosecution claimed that witness descriptions of the getaway car matched the hired car Carter was found driving in the vicinity of the Lafayette immediately after the killings, their statements even including a mention of the distinctive butterfly-shaped taillight chrome. However, although a witness said the rear lights lit up across the back of the getaway car, the taillights on Carter's Dodge Polara, although there was certainly a butterfly chrome surround, lit up only at the edges; it was the more expensive Dodge Monaco which had the extended lights. In the ever changing swirl of model names and trim levels which characterized the US industry during its golden age (1955-1973), in 1966 the Polara was Dodge’s entry-level full-size model, above which sat the higher-priced Polara 500, Monaco, and Monaco 500. For some reason (and this was not unusual), the lineup’s nomenclature in Canada differed, being Polara, Polara 440, Polara 880, and Monaco. In both markets however, it was only the Monaco which featured the extended tail lamps.
1966 Dodge Polara convertible (left) and 1966 Dodge Monaco two-door hardtop (right).
On a dark night, glimpsed by a traumatized witness for a second or two, that may have not been significant because tests did reveal the reflective silver finish on the Polara’s rear panel did indeed appear red at certain angles when the brake lights were activated but the distinction, along with a witness’s correction of this in the 1976 re-trial did lead some to suggest the police might have been coaching witnesses; “hardening the statement” in law enforcement lingo. That actually aligned with the evidence provided by another witness and the prosecution would later suggest later suggested the confusion was caused by the defense misreading the court transcript.
Maria Callas (1923-1977), backstage after appearing as Madam Butterfly, Civic Opera House, Chicago, 17 November 1955. Had Cio-Cio-San been this feisty, she'd have kept Pinkerton.
Bud Daley’s famous AP (Associated Press) photograph of diva Maria Callas, still in her Cio-Cio-San’s kimono, caught her snarling at US Federal Marshal Stanley Pringle, one of eight process servers there to serve her with two summonses. The image was shot just after she'd left the stage, following her third and final performance in Giacomo Puccini's (1858–1924) Madama Butterfly (Madam Butterfly, 1904) and appeared the next morning on the front page of the Chicago Sun-Times with the headline: “Not So Prim a Donna”. The article reported her words as: “Chicago will hear about this! I will not be sued! I have the voice of an angel! No man can sue me.” It transpired however at least one man could sue, the action brought by one Edward “Eddy” Bagarozy, who claimed to be the singer’s agent, an assertion based on a contract dating from 1947; the plaintiff sought (1) specific performance of the contract and (2) in the alternative, damages of US$300,000 (depending on the metrics chosen, equivalent to between US$4-6 million in 2025). As in many such matters, ultimately, things were settled out of court.
2002 Ferrari Enzo (left) & 2016 Ferrari LaFerrari (right).
Butterfly doors are used on some high-performance cars and not wholly as a gimmick, the advantage being that in such usually low-slung vehicle, they do make entry and exit somewhat easier than scissor doors. There’s even more functionally on certain competition cars because (1) they allow the carefully-crafted aerodynamics of the canopy to be preserved, (2) the driver can enter and leave the cockpit more quickly and (3) the design allows the structural integrity of the shell to be maximized. Butterfly doors open upwards and outwards and in that they differ from scissor doors which are hinged to move only upwards, thus offering the possibility of a greater aperture while demanding more lateral clearance. Exotic doors were seen in a handful of pre-war cars, none of which reached production, but it was the Mercedes-Benz 300SL (W194) race-car of 1952 which brought to public attention the idea car doors could be something different. Such was the response that the factory used the gull-wing doors when, in 1954, the 300SL (W198) was offered in a road-going version although the engineering, like the concept, was not new, having before been used in both marine architecture and aircraft fuselages. Similarly, the design elements which underlie butterfly and scissor doors can be found in buildings and machinery dating back in some cases centuries but of late, all have come most to be associated with exotic cars.
1967 Alfa Romeo 33 Stradale
Variations on the theme had appeared on the show circuit for some time before butterfly doors debuted on the Alfa Romeo 33 Stradale in 1967 which was much admired but it was thought the complexity of such things would limit their use to low volume runs such as the Stradale (of which only 18 were built) or one-off styling exercises such as the Alfa Romeo Carabo (1968) which used scissors. However, scissor doors appeared on the prototype Lamborghini Countach (LP500) and, despite the doubts of some, were retained when the production version was released in 1974. Since then, gull-wings (which open upward on a horizontal axis, hinged from the roof), scissors (which open upwards, rotating on a horizontal axis, hinged from the front), butterflies (which open upwards and outwards on an axis unaligned to the vertical or horizontal, hinged from the A (windscreen) pillar and dihedrals (scissors which move laterally while rotating ) have become common (relatively speaking) and designers seem intent on adding some new twist which seem sometimes to add no advantage but usually attract publicity (admittedly an advantage in the abstract), the most complex to date being the dihedral synchro helix doors which open forward, slide forward and rotate up.
Mercedes-Benz McLaren SLR Coupé & Roadster (top) and McLaren MP4-12C Coupé & Spider (bottom).
When Mercedes-Benz released the SLR McLaren (2003-2009), in an attempt to make explicit the link with the 300SL, they laid it on with a trowel, the phrase “gullwing doors” appearing in the factory’s original press release no less than seven times, just in case people didn’t get the message. Nobody was fooled and they’ve always been called butterflies. One clever piece of engineering was seen when the SLR roadster was released, those butterfly doors made possible by using hinge points along the rather than at the top. McLaren used a variation of this idea when it released the McLaren MP4-12C (2011-2014), omitting the top hinge which allowed the use of frameless windows even on the roadster (spider).
Hiro Yamagata san had planned the “Earthly Paradise” series to consist of 24 Mercedes-Benz 220 Cabriolet A models (W187) but it's said only 22 were completed although to assemble and restore that number of what were then 40-odd year old cars was a reasonable achievement. That probably is understating things because between 1951-1955 only 1,278 W187 Cabriolet As were bodied by Sindelfingen Karosserie and although most mechanical components were durable and easy to service the braking system was remarkably (and apparently pointlessly) intricate and the body structure contained much timber framing so restoration could be both challenging and time-consuming. Yamagata san’s artistic aim for the Earthly Paradise series was to “merge beautiful examples of technology with the presence of nature” and the inspiration for the “butterfly cars” came from what he’s seen during his visits to Fiji. According to notes he provided, the intricately painted images were not part of a “Save the Planet” or “Back to Nature” movement but were intended to remind viewers to “…pay attention to wonders of nature that are all around them--in drops of water, rainbows, skies and gardens.”
After restoration the cabriolets were all re-finished in a roughened matte white acrylic before Yamagata san and his 20 assistants hand-painted the colorful images, based on photographs the artist had taken during his visit to the Fijian islands. There is nothing unusual in work attributed to an artist coming technically from the hand of others and just as Raphael (Raffaello Sanzio da Urbino, 1483–1520) had a number of highly talented assistants in what was one of the largest and most sophisticated workshops of the High Renaissance and Winston Churchill (1875-1965; UK prime-minister 1940-1945 & 1951-1955) often had a team of writers skilled in emulating “Churchillian prose”, Yamagata’s staff were “following the master”. The Earthly Paradise project was rumored to have cost some US&20-30 million with each car nominally “priced” at $US1.3 million and although most have spent their post-project existences in museums or private collections, the occasional recent sales have been in the vicinity of US$125,000, somewhat less that would be expected for a meticulously restored W187 Cabriolet A.
1955 Mercedes-Benz 220 (W187) Cabriolet A (note the slightly curved windscreen, introduced during 1953 as a running-change). Unlike most manufacturers which used the term and sold “Cabriolets”, Mercedes-Benz in the inter-war years codified the variations in the coachwork as Cabriolet A, B, C, D & F.
Introduced in 1951, the W187 (type 220, 1951-1955) looked old-fashioned and were it not for the fared-in headlights (a first for Mercedes-Benz), probably few would have picked one from the pre-war W143 (Type 230, 1937-1941) although, stylistically, it’s less related to the W142 (Type 320, 1937-1942) which gained some infamy from being the model (a Cabriolet B) in which notorious Nazi SS-Obergruppenführer (Lieutenant-General) Reinhard Heydrich (1904–1942; head of the Reich Security Main Office 1939-1942) was assassinated in Prague. Although visually something of a relic, the drive train was modern, the new SOHC (single overhead camshaft) six cylinder engine (M180) being the unit which in various forms (2.2 litre (134 cubic inch); 2.3 (141), 2.5 (152) & 2.8 (170)), would endure until 1985 and more than any other was what re-established the company’s reputation in the post-war years.
Total production was 18,514, the bulk (16,154) being four-door sedans (1951-1954) but there were also 2,360 two door models (Cabriolet A, 1951-1955, (1,278), Cabriolet B (1951-1954, 997) & Coupé A (1953-1955, 85)) and an unusual Offener Tourenwagen Polizei (Open Police Touring Car, 1952-1953), a kind of utilitarian four-door phaeton with a fold-down windscreen, 41 supplied (apparently exclusively) to police forces in the FRG (Bundesrepublik Deutschland (Federal Republic of Germany; the old West Germany) 1949-1990). Collectors of course have always preferred the two-door cars with the Cabriolet A the most desirable; despite the tiny numbers of coupés (if fitted with the optional sunroof they were close to twice the price of a sedan), they’ve never been as sought as the convertibles although had they been numerous, Yamagata san might have preferred them for the Earthly Paradise series because the roof would have provided a notable increase in surface area for his art.
The W187 was the first Mercedes-Benz with a radiator shell which essentially was decorative; despite the appearance, the cap on which the three-pointed star sat no longer unscrewed to permit coolant to be added, the “real” cap under the hood (bonnet). Visually, running changes were few although in 1953 a curved windscreen (nothing as dramatic as had appeared that year on the first Cadillac Eldorado) was added to the Cabriolets and the Earthy Paradise series has examples of both those and the earlier “flat screen” cars. Reflecting the still austere post-war environment (the German Wirtschaftswunder (economic miracle) had begun but was not then recognized), the W187 (the smaller of Mercedes-Benz six-cylinder cars) wasn’t offered with some of the lower-volume coachwork available on the W142 which also had in the catalogue a four-door Pullman limousine (on a LWB (long wheelbase) with three rows of seats and an additional rear-quarter window), a six-seat Tourenwagen (a four door phaeton), two four door cabriolets (Cabriolet D & Cabriolet F) and a four door Stromlinien-Limousine (streamlined saloon) which picked up styling motifs from the earlier (and very expensive) 500K & 540K Autobahn-Kuriers (Freeway cruisers).
Like Yamagata san, the establishment never accepted Australian Pro Hart an a “serious artist” but his works achieved great popularity and while rarely seen in state galleries, appear often in private collections and rarely are passed-in when offered at auction. That his Silver Shadow was only one of several Rolls-Royces and Bentleys he owned hints at his success although keeping more than one may have been a way of ensuring one was always available: he lived in the outback town of Alice Springs and the nearest Rolls-Royce dealer was 1,174 miles (1,890 km) away.
In the art business, there’s a distinction between critical and commercial success and although Yamagata san in the 1980s made millions by producing extraordinary popular prints for the “Limited Edition” series sold by Martin Lawrence Galleries, critical acceptance eluded him. Although “cross-over” between popularity and artistic respectability is possible (witness Andy Warhol), what Yamagata san suffered was a level of “mass-produced” success which saw him confined to commercial publishing. Being rich but wishing also to be the “right sort” of famous, the artist decided in the early 1990s to become a patron, hoping to transform his image into something of an avant garde figure, his canvases of choice being a number of Mercedes-Benz 220 Cabriolet As from the early 1950s. An exhibition on that scale obviously would require a big space and to make the point what he had created was legitimately “authentic art”, that space had to be in a mainstream gallery or museum but his problem was his previous approaches to stage a showing had been declined on the basis of him being “too commercial” or, most cuttingly of all, a “shopping centre artist”.
Fortunately, the Los Angeles Municipal Art Gallery was struggling with chronic (and worsening) financial deficits so agreed to display the cars. According to the artist and exhibition curator, that decision was unrelated to a US$250,000 donation Yamagata san made to a related third-party, both noting the transaction was executed some twelve months after the booking had been confirmed. The money was used for “other projects” with the artist paying in whole for the “Earthly Paradise” exhibition; the curator confirmed he “…accepted the show on its aesthetic and conceptual merit”, adding he was “always interested in the interface between popular culture and fine art.” It was a well-promoted showing (banners all over the city and a prized billboard on Sunset Strip) which opened in September 1994, six completed cars displayed with another two “works in progress”. The critical response was restrained, although he had become a well-connected social success through his philanthropic work including for AmFAR’s campaign for AIDS research and sponsorship of exhibitions at Los Angeles’ MoCA (Museum of Contemporary Art) and New York’s MoMA (Museum of Modern Art).
Yamagata san did become a fixture in the commercial art business and a notable exponent in silkscreen printing as well as being one of the pioneers in the use of holograms and lasers. He was however never accepted by the establishment as an “artist” and the record price paid for one of his works was the US$30,529 Snowy Montmartre realized at auction in Tokyo in 2016; that was though an outlier, few of his sales achieving more than four figures. His career though has remained modestly lucrative because his vividly-colored pieces have wide popular appeal with his prints, serigraphs & screen-prints selling in volume for at least hundreds; books have been written explaining why a “pop artist” like Andy Warhol (1928–1987) was deemed a “genius” while Yamagata san remained marooned as a “shopping centre artist”. To add insult to injury, while his “US$1.3 million” Earthly Paradise cars have in recent years sold for between US$120-125,000 (essentially a discount of some US$30,000 against what would be expected of a diligently restored example which is about what a good quality repaint would cost), the 1979 BMW M1 hand-painted by Warhol in a reputed 28 minutes using 13 lb (5.9 kg) of paint (authenticity guaranteed by his fingerprints being left on several panels) is valued (depending on who is asked) at between US$60-250 million. That’s quite a spread but the answer is anyway “very expensive” and certainly a premium of many times the US$600-700,000 usually paid for a “non Warhol M1”. In fairness, the comparison shouldn’t be with a “normal M1” because the Warhol Art Car was a Group 4 race version which ran in the 1976 Le Man 24-Hour endurance classic (its only competitive outing), finishing a creditable sixth and second in class. A machine wish such a race pedigree would anyway attract a premium but in the art market it’s acknowledged Warhol’s Art Car #4 would be worth many times more, such is the lure of a "celebrity artist".
IBM Thinkpad 701 commercial, 1995.
