Can scribal hands be correlated to imagery? Let's look at faces!

Can scribal hands be correlated to imagery? Let's look at faces! - Printable Version

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RE: Can scribal hands be correlated to imagery? Let's look at faces! - Koen G - 07-06-2025

(06-06-2025, 02:53 PM)Bernd Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Thanks Koen, I was hoping of exactly this imput from you!

I'm sure you knew this thread would summon me sooner or later Wink

It's interesting that the decline in the Zodiac is also mirrored by a decline in Q13. One some pages, you get highly individualized nymphs, often doing something in the margin. But on other pages, it looks like they just copy-pasted a bunch of prefab mannequins, and this is when the most atrocious "Picasso style" emerges.

I agree that some non-nymph faces also seem to follow certain styles. Some of the celestial faces are actually full heads with hair and all, so I guess they can be compared to nymphs. Those immediately preceding the Zodiac appear to exhibit smooth-style characteristics, which makes for a nice continuation into Pisces on the verso.

Here's a page by page breakdown of the Zodiac section:

Pisces, Aries and Taurus: all smooth style; the forehead to the start of the chin is one line. When it bulges, it appears to signify puffy cheeks rather than pronounced cheek bones. The eyebrow connected to the nose line often doesn't even touch the forehead line.
Gemini: surrounding nymphs mostly smooth style, but some nymphs in the 7-8 o'clock sector display eye-dip style, just like the two central figures. This is interesting: the ornately dressed youths bottom left introduce the style together with the ornately dressed Gemini. Source influence?
Cancer and Leo: some smooth style, but many nymphs start showing the typical dip in the line at eye level. The dip is not very pronounced yet.
Virgo herself is smooth style, just like some of the nymphs around her. However, several nymphs now sport a dramatic dip in the line at eye level.
Libra, Scorpio, Sagittarius: almost all nymphs now have a dip in the line at eye level. The cheekbone is now one of the features of the face. The crossbowman himself, however, is full smooth style: a single curve from hat to chin.

Here's the weird thing though. It is easier to draw a simple line instead of one that distinguishes between forehead and cheekbone. If you look at pictures of people in 3/4 angles, you will notice that the "dip" at eye level is based on what people actually look like. In contrast, just drawing a semi circle for a face is more naive. Why does the "decline" in quality coincide with an apparent attempt to define more facial features of the profile?

(The Picasso style of some Q13 pages is very bad and does not relate to any physiognomic or artistic reality).

RE: Can scribal hands be correlated to imagery? Let's look at faces! - Hider - 07-06-2025

(05-06-2025, 04:28 PM)Bernd Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.The root faces in You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. associated with scribal hand #2 (shown on the right) match the large astro faces accociated with scribal hand #4 remarkably well. Even the two eybrows in addition to the nose line can be found in both.

The faces have cipher inscriptions in the shape of nose, eyebrows, mouth, and eyes.

RE: Can scribal hands be correlated to imagery? Let's look at faces! - Bernd - 11-06-2025

Reverse pareidolia - seeing objects in faces Rolleyes

As always with the VM, all hypotheses I can think of require significant mental gymnastics to make them work. But I think we have ample evidence that both VM text and imagery were not created in one go but in several stages. According to this hypothesis, the Sagittarius crossbowman was created relatively early and the nymphs added later. Also Pharma was created before B-plants, meaning the roots preceded large B-plants. There must have been a source. I also agree that source style may have influenced the style of the VM.

Assuming the one-author-different-styles hypothesis, I still find it difficult to establish an evolutionary time-line of the manuscript's creation.