The Voynich Ninja

(16-11-2017, 02:02 PM)VViews Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view....
In Problems, he also ponders whether smells are more like smoke or more like vapor....

Very interesting point.


Let's say for a moment it is scent. In plants, most of the scent comes from the flower, but there are aromatic plants like the mint family, the sage family, where just touching the leaves (or getting close to them) makes one very aware of the scent, and then there are the plants regularly used to make incense.

If it were incense, then a shrine-shaped cloud would be thematically consistent with spiritual/religious practices both then and now, since incense is regularly burned at altars, shrines, and funeral biers.

Looking at that, I have a few thoughts, one of them is the Holy Grotto and Virgin Mary. 
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If you type Pagan grotto into Google Images, it will show many old grottoes that were converted from nymph grottoes to Virgin Mary grottoes.


This shell grotto (Kent), reminds me of the textures in many of the VMS illustrations:



This site includes a map of the interior. It's very extensive and apparently well thought-out:

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Some of the shell grottoes include figures wearing crowns (again with textures similar to the VMS):

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JKP, you're not making it easy on me to steer away from Demeter and Persephone

(16-11-2017, 03:32 PM)-JKP- Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.there are aromatic plants like the mint family

"Persephone, you were allowed to alter a woman’s body, Menthe’s, to fragrant mint...."
Metamorphoses, Bk X:708-739

(16-11-2017, 09:55 PM)Koen Gh. Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.JKP, you're not making it easy on me to steer away from Demeter and Persephone

LOL!

Even when I think I've found something, even when I'm 90% sure, I always keep looking because it's so easy to get tunnel vision. I often end up coming back to where I started (happens a lot with the VMS), sometimes even years later, but at least I know I looked in other places and I'm back where I started for a reason.

What's holding me back at the moment is (1) incomplete understanding of the triangular structure and (2) the fact that female deity iconography is relatively fluid. Demeter and Persephone regularly share the grain attribute, and there are more women who can be marked by the three "flowers". Including the one set on the ecliptic, holding Spica. But there are more.

I'm currently finishing a blog post revisiting the obligatory presence of a "horizon" for each nymph. They are either standing on top of a horizontal line or slightly sunk behind it. Literally 99% of nymphs are drawn this way. But this one is among the exceptions, which must be relevant. At first I thought there was no horizon, indicating..flight? But your saying that the Triangular shape might be an entrance to a cave or the like made me see things differently. There is a horizon, perhaps, but she's beneath it. Rather Chthonic. 

Still it doesn't make total sense. The VM takes pieces of meaning and references and does something special with them. Still, it seems to know what it's doing.
Again from Ovid, describing Ceres (Demeter) mourning the loss of her daughter:

Quote:the goddess tore her dishevelled hair

Now, Persephone was only allowed to leave Hades if she hadn't eaten anything during her stay there. Turns out that she had eaten a few pomegranate seeds. This is why the pomegranate is one of her symbols.

But it's likely more complex than mere mythological references. Demeter and Persephone are basically personifications of the cycle of the seasons. When Persephone goes to hell in autumn, the land withers. When she is allowed to return each spring, life renews.

From Ovid's Metamorphoses:

"[Theseus] entered the dark building, made of spongy pumice, and rough tufa. The floor was moist with soft moss, and the ceiling banded with freshwater mussel and oyster shells."

Mussels are bluish. Oyster shells whitish.


Not necessarily connected, but interesting in that many of the VMS textural patterns alternate in blue and unpainted.

My personal opinion is that the analysis of details can go in parallel with the analysis of larger sections in the manuscript. In particular, this illustration can be compared with several illustrations in Quire 13.

I will not try here to formulate a complete “grammar” of Q13 illustrations, but I think there are recurring patterns in how nymphs are represented in Q13b (i.e. excluding folios with large pools):

At the top there often is the Source of some kind of Fluid. This triangular shape seems to me to fit this category. The Source can be the “Tub” of another nymph higher in the page. Often the Source has a shape that is difficult to classify and that includes cloud-like patterns (see attached details for a few examples). Some Sources seem more identifiable but are still puzzling (“pine-cones”, a dead animal, canopies, rainbows…). Sources are often labelled (e.g. attached details 82v, 78r).

The Fluids are highly differentiated: helicoid 76v, straight lines and dots 77v, parallel waves 78r, short vertical dashes 80v, dashes and single dots 84r etc. This is particularly evident in the illustration at the top of You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view..  Like the different kinds of Sources, also the different Fluids must be meaningful.

Under the Source there is a  Nymph.

The Nymph often holds an Attribute (the three blossoms / spikes / leaves in this example; ring in 80v; cross in 79v etc).
OR
she is interacting with the extremity of a Pipe (e.g. 77v, 79r in the attached examples, or the “star cannon” in You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.). Pipes are often labelled.

It is almost mandatory that the nymph stands in some kind of Tub (Quire 13 b). The main exceptions to this rule seem to me to be the guy in 80r (who is also exception for being a man and being dressed) and the nymph at the top of 79r. The You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. detail pointed out by Koen is the most clear and striking exception: she could also be the first nymph of Quire 13 b (since the recto of the folio appears to be an unillustrated first page of quire).  
It is quite interesting that the Tub can also function as Source for a lower nymph, sometimes producing long vertical chains like You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.: Source, Nymph, Tub/Source, Nymph, Tub/Source, Nymph, Tub/Source...

I see the nymph in 76v as largely paralleled by other nymphs: this leads me to interpret the fluid in 76v as going down, as it more clearly does in other illustrations. The closest detail to the Source of 76v seems to me to be the “collateral source” below the top nymph in 79r: I interpret these shapes as meant to represent cones seen in profile. 
Each nymph is unique, but each one also has traits in common with the others. So one can switch back and forth between what is unique and what is common, trying to make sense of the whole. In the end, I hope it could be possible to restrict the number of possibilities for the subject of the illustration cycle, but I am quite sure that several of the details cannot be explained in a satisfactory way.

Several elements of Q13b appear in other parts of the manuscript, such as You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. (a composition of four amazingly complex sources) and the Rosettes diagram (even more complex). If we could understand more of the visual syntax of Quire 13 we could also understand more of those other diagrams.

This is a modern reproduction of a Byzantine image of Christ:

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What is interesting about it is that it has a piled-up scallop shape (reminiscent of the Pagan grotto imagery) above it, and narrow columns on either side with a spiral pattern that would look similar to "curls" if you didn't know the context (didn't know it was a drawing of columns).


So, even though it differs substantially from the VMS drawing in the stylistic sense, there are similar elements in the forms framing the figure.

(15-11-2017, 08:38 PM)Koen Gh. Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.

What could it be and why would it be above this nymph? I've likened it to certain things before but I'm unable to fully understand its significance. What do you think?

I like your idea of "invisible stairs". I think the nymph on f76v  has her head in the clouds . Let's say my reference line is the "exosphere" . Depending on this lines position, the nymphs are placed whithin the sphere ( if existing, otherwise below ). My drawing skills are limited, but figuratively the whole thing could look like this :