The Voynich Ninja

FWIW, the 'artist' had clearly never heard of perspective.

Do you prefer a linear perspective?

Or perhaps the artist had heard of perspective [3-D] and chose not to use it. All that extra time lining things up. Heck with it. Two dimensions are sufficient, three would be excessive. What is the purpose of the illustrations? This is clearly not a work of representational artistry. Do the illustrations constitute a form of communication? What does the artistry have to say?

What form does this communication take? Is the VMs expository? Was it intended to come right out and say what the author(s) intended to communicate as plainly as possible? Or is this something else? Something more complex, more involved, more intricate, more sophisticated, more tricky than was expected. Examples from certain investigations, starting with the VMs cosmos, show what the VMs artist knew and how they chose to represent that information. The examples make historical connections, and they also seem to show an intentional manipulation of appearance.

(11-05-2024, 09:12 PM)Bernd Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.There is something profoundly odd about the tubes in the flower of You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. and the root of f33v, both Currier B pages assigned to scribe 2.





Is there anything comparable in contemporary imagery? It looks so un-medieval but then again many oddities in the VM have equivalents in other manuscripts. So far I certainly have not seen tubes in depictions of plants.

On the Rosette page, they also line the path in the south east from position 6 to 9. I too have always found them curious.

(12-05-2024, 06:57 PM)R. Sale Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Or perhaps the artist had heard of perspective [3-D] and chose not to use it. All that extra time lining things up. Heck with it. Two dimensions are sufficient, three would be excessive. What is the purpose of the illustrations? This is clearly not a work of representational artistry. Do the illustrations constitute a form of communication? What does the artistry have to say?

What form does this communication take? Is the VMs expository? Was it intended to come right out and say what the author(s) intended to communicate as plainly as possible? Or is this something else? Something more complex, more involved, more intricate, more sophisticated, more tricky than was expected. Examples from certain investigations, starting with the VMs cosmos, show what the VMs artist knew and how they chose to represent that information. The examples make historical connections, and they also seem to show an intentional manipulation of appearance.

Absolutely agree with you re intentional manipulation of appearance. Nymphs, for instance, appearing as pregnant women, but can stand in for male, female, gods or goddesses, water of life, angels, souls, star essence, etc. It’s only their context or implements that help identify them. And when you have a narrative, the same drawn nymph won’t appear again to continue the story, but a different one. You MUST already know the narrative/story exceptionally well to follow along. 

Which is why I’ve always thought the VMS might be some type of grandmaster test.

Indeed, it is a test to try to interpret the VMs illustrations in a manner that is applicable to the early 1400s. From the artist's perspective, certain images were apparently deemed too obvious, and consequently were disguised. The innate duality of VMs White Aries provides a second path of interpretation that connects with the Catholic tradition of the cardinal's red galero.

From the artist's perspective, the disguise was used to obfuscate something that was known. For much of modern VMs investigation, the disguise further served to obfuscate something that was unknown. And therein lies a problem.

(08-05-2024, 05:55 PM)R. Sale Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Images tagged as depicting cannons.

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Guns / cannons are indeed the best shot here:
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Especially the guns of this image look familiar; all pictures are taken from Ivan IV.s ("the terrible") chronicles which were produced in Russia nearly a hundred years later than VMS. There are many more gun scenes in that manuscript, this here is just a selection. Artists keep the back ends of these barrels of these cannon barrels somehow hidden in all images -- maybe these parts were not known to them or considered irrelevant.
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So at least one major russian manuscript contained such strange, "bundled" cannons' paintings.
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Next shows that there was indeed a kind of "bundling" of cannons (from Ms. Thott 290.2, ~1458AD, closer in time to VMS).
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Here is a kind of practical use for bundled guns; R.Sale's link shows some other examples of "strange" gunnery from medieval times.
These may appear strange to us today, but obviously such weapons lived through some changes and developments from their beginnings, which were not very  much earlier than 14th/15th century at all.

On the other hand, nearly none of those people had ever seen a real cannon, some inaccuracies may result from simply not knowing the exact subject of that artwork.

I thought they were cannons at first sight and these paintings are very convincing comparisons. I have two back up guesses: organ pipes, and smoke stacks, both of which have some pictorial equivalents as well. 

But the cannons still seem the most true to me. So why cannons?

If you regard the centre rosette as the world, and the page itself as involving prophecy (as I do - but long story), then the most likely interpretation is that they are defense against the anti-Christ and/or Muslims - one and the same to some Catholics.  Roger Bacon has some very interesting insights about the kinds of things needed for this coming battle (they all, at every age or even decade, seemed to believe it was imminent). Moreover,while Constantinople had not yet fallen (to cannons!), the surrounding areas had fallen, lots of emigration to Europe, the Christian east was falling, etc.  In this context, the cannons as defence seem apropos.

Depictions of cannons:

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(8 hours ago)R. Sale Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Depictions of cannons:

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Those are brilliant!  I particularly like the ones where they’re just throwing the cannonballs at the enemies, no pipes in evidence at all. Made me laugh. 

As for groups, the 1420-1440 Germany miniature’s cannons are at least in a group and - maybe- an inspiration for our group, though I feel that’s reaching. 

At base, symbolically speaking, there’s a good chance the pipes represent the forceful ejection or projection of something. Whether that’s air, smoke, the body (more spiritual interpretation), the 72 names of God in prayer, music, cannonballs or something else is up for grabs.Also, for me, I don’t think the top left rosette pipes have to necessarily represent the same thing as the central rosette pipes. I quite like Monica’s “the body” interpretation for the top left, particularly as those pipes form a group of five, the number for the body. 

Basically, cannons were known to forcefully eject cannonballs, singularly or in groups, in this time period. So they are a good symbol for ejection, and possibly defence, without needing to be depicted realistically.