Someone had a reason for making the manuscript and drawing the plants. It's all done with a combination of commitment but also an apparent sloppiness or insufficient formal training.
The main problem with the colors is that the painter does not mix consistent batches and is not able to put down the paint evenly. I don't know whether this is because of the preparation process, the materials, the tools, the skills or a combination of all of those. But the painting is objectively subpar and appears sloppy.
This does not mean that the painting was done with less diligence and dedication than the rest of the work. Browse through the pharma (small plants) pages for example. All the different shades of green and brown they try to use to differentiate the little plants. And instead of painting many tiny leaves as one blob, they go in and fill every single one.
Just like the drawings, it seems to be an issue of skill rather than effort. Admittedly, the effort is not the same everywhere, but the same can be said about the drawings. For example, you can see the Zodiac nymphs become less and less differentiated as the series progresses. And nymphs in general often follow cookie-cutter designs.
Everything about the paint is completely in character for the MS. The paint just draws way more attention to itself because it's big and colorful.
If the question in the OP is: why was it painted in the first place, the most obvious answer is: this was the normal thing to do. There are illustrated herbals (and certainly other illustrated manuscripts) that were not painted, but these are a minority. A nice example is Den Haag MMW 10 D 7, a Pseudo-Apuleius from the 10th century.
The painting makes the manuscripts more interesting, or attractive, which is why it was done.
The colours were not there to help identification of the plants.
(02-06-2026, 08:24 AM)Koen G Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.The main problem with the colors is that the painter does not mix consistent batches and is not able to put down the paint evenly. I don't know whether this is because of the preparation process, the materials, the tools, the skills or a combination of all of those. But the painting is objectively subpar and appears sloppy.
(02-06-2026, 10:42 AM)ReneZ Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.The painting makes the manuscripts more interesting, or attractive, which is why it was done.
The colours were not there to help identification of the plants.
Thanks for pointing this out. I think you're both correct. Perhaps it's not the rush job I was seeing. Perhaps it was just a combination of a lack of skill forced by, "colorful illustrations are what's expected."
I was also under the impression these weren't field guides so much as received academic knowledge that might never touch practice. Given that we're unsure where in the broader herbal tradition the VMS might fall, it's quite difficult to say what the exact pressures may or may not have been, but my understanding was that practical identification of these plants wasn't necessarily one of them?
(02-06-2026, 04:09 AM)BessAgritianin Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.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
But all those pigments are naturally-occurring minerals that don't need any "alchemical" processing other than grinding.
And anyway,alchemists would have been unable to make azurite or orpiment. Even today they require special lab equipment.
Quote: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.
A real red pigment used at that time would have been You are not allowed to view links.
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Login to view. (cinnabar, a deep red mineral consisting of mercury sulfide) or You are not allowed to view links.
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Login to view. (lead tetroxide, bright orangish red). From the Beinecke images, it is had to tell whether either were used. I don't think we can trust the color shades we see on the creen. The "reds" in the VMS may have been You are not allowed to view links.
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Login to view. (ferric oxide, rusty red),
AFAIK minium was much cheaper than cinnabar, and hematite should have been cheaper. But it is not like the VMS Painter needed pigments by the pound...
(02-06-2026, 04:36 AM)Dunsel Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.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?
Indeed, if that was the case, why draw the plants at all?
Apart from the colors, the use of vellum (poor as it is) and the illustrations (poor as they are) strongly suggest that the VMS was created to others, not for personal use by the Author.
It could have been for a specific person, or he may have hoped to sell it eventually. Or maybe it was meant to be his legacy to humanity, a repository of his knowledge that he did not want to die with him. Or maybe it was meant for shared use by the Secret Mystic Society of Women Who Bathed With Their Hats On. But I think this last alternative is rather unlikely.
"Made for others" is not totally certain only because I recall some eccentric American whose hobby was to "forge" ancient manuscripts, just for fun.
Quote:But again, I'm art impaired. I'm still trying to comprehend why someone paid $181.2 million for paint splatter.
For the same reason that people paid tens of thousands of dollars for an NFTs, or for stuffed Beanie Babies bear...
All the best, --stolfi
(02-06-2026, 08:56 PM)Jorge_Stolfi Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view."Made for others" is not totally certain only because I recall some eccentric American whose hobby was to "forge" ancient manuscripts, just for fun.
And, if it is forged, that puts Wilfred back on the table as a possibility. Because what we have is an inferred provenance assembled from surviving letters, ownership marks, archival context, and the manuscript's later discovery. How convenient of Wilfred to just have happened to find that Kircher letter with the manuscript.
Quote:For the same reason that people paid tens of thousands of dollars for an NFTs, or for stuffed Beanie Babies bear...
Thankfully, I'm only art impaired, not gullible, but very true.
A question to which I don't have the answer: do medieval herbal texts mention the colours of the plants, in particular also flowers? The answer to this will indicate (at least to some extent) how 'important' the colours were.
(03-06-2026, 12:40 AM)ReneZ Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.A question to which I don't have the answer: do medieval herbal texts mention the colours of the plants, in particular also flowers?
After all, color annotations do sometimes appear in manuscripts. See, for example, Marco’s post:
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Quote:Alain Touwaide Wrote:
Voynich ms illustrations contain instructions about the colors to be applied to pen drawings, according to the different parts of plants. Such instructions mention the name of the color to be applied (Voynich f4r), but in German, a peculiar fact that does not seem to be compatible with a Northern Italian origin of the manuscript.
(03-06-2026, 01:33 AM)bi3mw Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.After all, color annotations do sometimes appear in manuscripts.
I know.
But there are not very many such cases, and this is a different question. I was (and still am) curious about the texts. I don't recall that the colour annotations seen in e.g. Vicenza MS 362 also appear in the text.
Possibly, these reflect what the outline-drawing 'artist' saw in a source MS.