The Voynich Ninja

I'm taking a break from my computational attacks on the Voynich.  I decided to look at the illustrations.  Before I begin, I fully claim to be art ignorant.

But, here's my observation/question.

I got GPT to help with this bit.  I took a page from the Voynich herbal section and a page from a 15th century herbal book, Erbario and asked it to remove the color from both images.

Now, I'll ask you to look at these two closely at how much information about the plant these images provide.  If this were a "field guide" herbal, could you identify the plant from these line drawings?

[attachment=15862][attachment=15863]

Next, click on the spoiler link below and ask yourself, how much additional information regarding identification was provided by adding color?  


My interpretation, and I can visually apply this to other Voynich illustrations: Adding color didn't provide me with a lot more information.  Unlike Erbario where the colors would aid in identification, I think adding color to the Voynich plant may have made it more difficult to identify.

I know, this is nothing new. Just my musings.

Yep, i agree, colorization in the vms is very suspect  ( i think a youngster did it thinking it was a coloring book or Marci did it in his dotage ).

And I can only agree too. The used colors seem not to reflect reality but rather the paints available to the painter.
For example there is definitely too much blue:
You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.

However removing the paint doesn't really help us much.

Okay, there are people like me, that nothing would help them   I just don't know how herbs and other stuff growing in the field look like and wouldn't recognize buckthorn, hemlock, goutweed or alehoof even if drawn in most realistic way. In case of many such plants I don't even know that they exist.

But there are people who are good at botany and are good at herbals and they cannot regognize Voynich plants too.

"Who put these weird and sloppy colors in my weird and sloppy manuscript?"

Just to say, I agree that the colors are problematic, but this is completely in character for the MS. I'd see this as evidence for their authenticity. Lest we forget that the vast majority of Voynich plants are impossible to identify and that we've got nymphs with arms attached to their bellies and lobsters with legs on their tails.

There are "irregularities". There are also trends and patterns. Specifically, regarding colors - the excessive use of blue and the repeated occurrence of alternating blue and 'white' (blank) patterns. Could it be a clue?

Color and pattern are important factors in the investigation of VMs White Aries and the proposed identification of the Genoese Fieschi popes.

"Hating the painter" is not a solution...

Though some people may wish that all colour-work was sloppy, false and irritating because it spoils their theories, I did not see any robust proof for the all-colours-came-much-later-by-some-childish-person-idea.

Other manuscripts of VMS era also sometimes show such kind of non-perfect colouring -- yes, there are many books with better artwork, but also some at VMS's level and a few surely even worse.
Colouring seems to fit to the rest of VMS quite well.

About the discussions like "too much blue flowers" etc.: J. Barabe said in the last Zoom that a formerly white colour changed with the time into yellow, due to chemical reasons (something about protein or such), so a lot of "yellow" could have been white initially.
He did not mention any changes in the 'blue' chemistry, but there seem to have been some conventions about using blue colour when something like violet is meant, in earlier times.
And finally, the artist (and the author) maybe just liked the blue colour most -- it is considered as a highest valuable colour within several cultures...

(01-06-2026, 09:26 PM)Stefan Wirtz_2 Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Though some people may wish that all colour-work was sloppy, false and irritating because it spoils their theories, I did not see any robust proof for the all-colours-came-much-later-by-some-childish-person-idea.

Maybe not "all" and maybe not "by-some-child", but there are at least two bits of evidence indicating that the colors were applied after the book was bound. Namely, (1) the observation (by microscope, on the physical book) by Rene and others that the green paint on You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. was applied after the folio number was written; and (2) the mis-alignment of the paint on the flower of page You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. and that on the bits of that flower that overflowed into f40r.

On the other hand, I know of no evidence indicating that the colors were applied at about the same time as the text and drawings were made.

Quote:[Barabe] did not mention any changes in the 'blue' chemistry

The McCrone report identified the blue pigment as the mineral You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view., a copper carbonate-hydroxide. Azurite is moderately stable; in bad environments it could perhaps change to another copper carbonate-hydroxide, which is green. But that does not seem to have happened on the VMS.

I can't think of any pigment of some other color that could have been available to the Painter that could change in time to blue.  It could be a mix of azurite with some other pigment (like with yellow to make green, or with red to make purple) where the other pigment became colorless with time.  But this too seems quite unlikely.

So I think we can assume that all blue areas in the VMS were painted blue by the Painter.

However, some of the blue paint seems to have been mixed with some other substance that was (or became) dark grey to black, did not dry properly, and, over time, migrated to the edges of painted area and offsetted on the facing page.  No other paint seems to have done so.

Quote:maybe just liked the blue colour most -- it is considered as a highest valuable colour within several cultures...

Until recently there were two blue mineral pigments widely used by artists: azurite and You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view..  Azurite must have been more expensive than the browns, yellows, oranges, and greens we see in the VMS (which seem to have been all very common minerals), but was still much cheaper than lapis-lazuli, which gave a nicer shade of blue but was imported from Afghanistan.  McCrone did not find any of the latter in the VMS.

All the best, --stolfi

(01-06-2026, 11:37 PM)Jorge_Stolfi Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Maybe not "all" and maybe not "by-some-child", but there are at least two bits of evidence indicating that the colors were applied after the book was bound. Namely, (1) the observation (by microscope, on the physical book) by Rene and others that the green paint on You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. was applied after the folio number was written; and (2) the mis-alignment of the paint on the flower of page You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. and that on the bits of that flower that overflowed into f40r.

I consider it highly unlikely that someone would have added a small touch of paint to a corner in the fold or seam after the book had already been bound.
My view is that You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. was folded and lying next to You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. when the paint was applied.
That is, before or between the first and second bindings.

[attachment=15876]

On page f42r, it looks as though the green was applied after the number. Still, I wouldn’t swear to it.
The question is: Did the water stain have enough of an effect to cover the 42 with the green or even to mix the two?

When was the ink actually applied?

Translated with DeepL.com (free version)

I think that the colorization in VM was not decorative. It was functional and informational.
The colors are evidence of alchemist painter, not a professional illuminator.
For example the blue cube from f102v2- coloured with copper-base pigment is matching the blue vitriol in the text.

What did the 15 century alchemists develop as colors for their needs:

Deep blue- basis copper carbonate pigment azurite
Bright green- basis copper carbonate piment malachit
Red brown- iron oxide pigment red ochra
Bright yellow- arsenic sulfide-pigment orpiment
The three-color violet on You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. is a perfect example of why the colors in VM are important. They are intentional encoded information and they are consistant with VM identity as alchemical-pharmaceutical manual.
[attachment=15877]
So the colors are not weakness they are signature that the author had used the standard pigments of the alchemist laboratory.
My personal opinion is that they did not have bright red color, this did not help them to paint violet or true red but brownish red.

(01-06-2026, 02:15 PM)Koen G Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view."Who put these weird and sloppy colors in my weird and sloppy manuscript?"

Just to say, I agree that the colors are problematic, but this is completely in character for the MS. I'd see this as evidence for their authenticity. Lest we forget that the vast majority of Voynich plants are impossible to identify and that we've got nymphs with arms attached to their bellies and lobsters with legs on their tails.

In character for the MS.  Out of character for a herbal.

So the basic choices I see are:

1. The person who drew those illustrations knew what those plants were and drew them for their own personal use.  But that begs the question, if they knew those plants, why was there a need to add color?  
2. They weren't meant to be illustrations that allowed for plant identification.  In which case, adding color was simply adding some visual depth.
3. Someone added the color after the book was finished as Jorge suggested from the microscopic work.  And that begs another question.  Why?

To me, most all of the coloring looks rushed. The outlines, that scribe took more time to get the shapes the way they wanted them.  The colorizer, just get it done.

But again, I'm art impaired.  I'm still trying to comprehend why someone paid $181.2 million for paint splatter.