The Voynich Ninja

I was reading parts of the thread about most certain plant ID's, and came across You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. by DONJCH:

(13-01-2019, 11:39 PM)DONJCH Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.I just wanted to say that this is a really useful thread.

Equally useful might be a thread about those plants that nobody has any clue about whatsoever.

So for people who have tried identifying the plants - which are the ones that really make the least sense from a botanical perspective? Which ones require the most nudging and squinting to get them to resemble anything that actually exists?

For example, You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. is one of the plants I can't think of much about.

You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. , seems i am not the only one who finds it peculiar   You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.

F40v is the first one I'd think of as well. How about You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. ?

(05-05-2024, 05:22 PM)Koen G Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.which are the ones that really make the least sense from a botanical perspective?

I must say I have moved away from this perspective. There are some plants like the Viola on You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. which clearly represent realistic plants and were probably drawn after live or pressed specimens but for most I think looking for similar plant drawings in contemporary herbals makes more sense. Many plants in herbals don't look like the real thing at all. I assume at least some were simply drawn after a short verbal description and therefore dependent on the artist's imagination, others may have been repeatedly copied from other bad drawings.

Regarding You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. there is a clear homology of the flower to the Rosette page. It is near unthinkable that these features evolved independently and I am convinced whoever drew that flower also drew the Rosette. You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. should be Scrbe 2 while the Rosette is Scribe 2 or 4?

[attachment=8510]

The Rosette contains a lot of elements found in plants, especially from Scribe 2, but strangely all drawings in the VM regardless of Scribe share certain repeating elements. So just as all VM drawings are weird it should not be surprising that the plants are as well.

There are several instances in which the artist recycles plant parts in a different context which does not make sense. You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. and f90v2 share inflorescence and plant shape but f90v2 has pinnate leaves which do not match its asteraceae-type composite flowers.

Same goes for f39v. It has a somewhat naive dicot flower which does not match this plant at all which is either a monocot or bryophyte. There is an almost identical plant in f95r2 that appears to be a moss with sporangia instead of flowers.

But as said this is just the tip of the iceberg, I am working on a thread of strangely similar or composite plants, often drawn by different scribal hands.

There are several interesting questions at work here.
If we call the person who made any drawing an 'artist', then we can wonder 
(1) how many different artists there were, and 
(2) whether the artists were the same persons as the scribes.

I agree that it seems likely that the artist who drew the plant on You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. was the same who drew the above-mentioned circle on the Rosettes page.
I would also argue that the artist(s) who drew the plants mostly did a reasonable job, but the same cannot be said about the nymphs.
There are many other parallels that can be explored, for example the pharma containers and the towers in the centre of Rosettes etc.
How about the nymphs in the zodiac vs. those in the biological section?

I am looking forward to hearing more insights especially about the plant drawings.

I find the suggestion that the drawings are based on verbal descriptions very tempting, though I am not sure how common this was. Mostly, drawings were copied from other MSs, but we already know for the Voynich MS that no link to other illustrations exists (with possibly just one exception).

I'm not sure if I'd say those two ovoid shapes are drawn by the same artist for sure. They are clearly related, and one must have seen the other. But stylistically, there are some differences. For example: 

• The little crescent shapes in the plant float in the center, while those in the rosettes are connected to the inner rim.
  
• The rosettes has an extra pair of yellow "lips" between the small crescents and the petals. 
  
• In the plant, the petals are doubled, while in the rosettes, they are similar.
  

Of course, these are different contexts, which could explain these differences, but this makes it also hard for us to determine whether these were done by the same artist. What seems stylistic may also be prompted by context, and vice versa.

I am not certain of anything here, so that's why I wrote likely.

I think that your arguments:

(08-05-2024, 07:04 AM)Koen G Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.[*]The little crescent shapes in the plant float in the center, while those in the rosettes are connected to the inner rim.

[*]The rosettes has an extra pair of yellow "lips" between the small crescents and the petals. 

[*]In the plant, the petals are doubled, while in the rosettes, they are similar.

suggest to me that they are probably not 'the same thing'.
However, they are very much the same style.

Not having any art background, I would not know how to identify an artist hand with any kind of certainty.

(05-05-2024, 05:34 PM)bi3mw Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.For example, You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. is one of the plants I can't think of much about.

Hi,

You might take a look at Geranium for starters, if interested.

You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.

You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.

You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.


Regards,

Dana Scott