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+--- Thread: Do Herbal A and Herbal B correspond to differences in imagery? (/thread-3106.html)
RE: Do Herbal A and Herbal B correspond to differences in imagery? - Koen G - 25-04-2021
(24-04-2021, 11:14 PM)Anton Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.For the dividing line in the stem, it's just a stylistic difference. The A scribe (or the artist who worked together with the A scribe) had the habit of separating stems with a line. He was also in habit of colour annotations, while the B scribe was not.
This would mean that A-images were drawn entirely by a different artist than B-images. It is possible, but then why is the difference only noticeable in this small detail. Notably, a detail that is very easy to add once the drawing is in place. Just a swoop of the pen. We know that the text was added after the images, so it is possible that scribe 1, while penning his text, decided to "fix" the drawing here and there. This would mean that the original artist always drew with open stems, and scribe 1 - whether or not this was the same person - decided to close some of those stems while he had the pen in his hand for writing the text.
In some examples, it really looks like this is what happened, with the dividing line looking different from the rest of the drawing. Sometimes it blends in well though, which is why I find it difficult to assess what happened.
For the red paint, it is even trickier, as Michelle explains
RE: Do Herbal A and Herbal B correspond to differences in imagery? - MarcoP - 25-04-2021
(25-04-2021, 11:28 AM)Koen G Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.This would mean that A-images were drawn entirely by a different artist than B-images. It is possible, but then why is the difference only noticeable in this small detail. Notably, a detail that is very easy to add once the drawing is in place. Just a swoop of the pen.
I agree, Koen. I find it difficult to think of more than an illustrator. But then, I also found it difficult to think of more than one scribe, before Lisa's paper. We totally need a peer-reviewed art history paper about Voynich illustrations. In the meantime, it's great to see such an innovative approach: bravo Koen, Oocephalus and SamG!
About the "swoop of the pen", the argument does not apply to "flat-top" or "grafted" roots. In my opinion, Oocephalus is right and the simple dividing-line is a "variant" of the more elaborate flat-top roots. BTW, flat-top roots appear in the Alchemical herbal and Trinity O.2.48 (both probably originating from Italy).
I don't know about occurrences of the simpler dividing line in other herbals. Wild Sage in Marciana It. Z.78 (North-Eastern Italy, XV Century) has a puzzling "dividing ring".
RE: Do Herbal A and Herbal B correspond to differences in imagery? - -JKP- - 25-04-2021
There are a number of medieval plant books that are copied from more than one source. In some instances, they are copied all in one section, and then copied from another secion (sometimes with an overlap in some of the plants). I have made a survey of manuscripts that have these characteristics.
In other cases, the sources seem more co-mingled (rather than being in distinctly different sections).
Others are clearly copied from a single source.
So, another possibility to add to the list is that if the VMS plants are copies, maybe A was from one source and B was from another. I am hesitant to believe the VMS plant drawings are mere copies. They might be inspired by looking at other books, but they appear to me to be unique in a number of ways. But there still may be a possibility they were inspired by different sources.
RE: Do Herbal A and Herbal B correspond to differences in imagery? - -JKP- - 25-04-2021
I've always believed there were at least two scribes. To me the transition from script A to B is jarring and I recognize the shifts as I come across them while looking for other things. I've never had enough time to check the whole manuscript, but I almost have enough data to do that.
I also believe there is more than one painter (I've blogged about this). One is very sloppy (my guesses are that it's someone young, or hasty, or very disinterested in the process). The other is more careful and tends to blend colors better.
And there is a small possibility there is more than one illustrator in the nymphy sections. I've been working on in-depth studies of the nymph drawings (and a follow-up to the faces blog). I'll try to write it up soon.
I haven't looked at whether there are two styles of plant drawings (outside of the characteristics mentioned in this thread). Not enough hours in the day. But I think it's an important observation and given that the whole VMS might be a collaborative effort, I am following the topic with interest.
RE: Do Herbal A and Herbal B correspond to differences in imagery? - Anton - 25-04-2021
(25-04-2021, 11:28 AM)Koen G Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.This would mean that A-images were drawn entirely by a different artist than B-images. It is possible, but then why is the difference only noticeable in this small detail.
I'd rather say, it has been noticed in small detail, not is noticeable. Practice shows that many details of the VMS went unnoticed for I don't know how long. When one begins a systematic analysis, they suddenly get noticed. Likewise, in this case, a systematic analysis of A vs B drawings would be helpful.
Of course, I can think the other way - maybe this kind of stem separation was used as some marker or mnemonic. So the guy, reviewing the folios afterwards, placed the marker where it was absent (but should have been present).
Regarding the painting, I think it's important to take into consideration that painting (or, at least, some of it) was not applied directly after the drawing. To resolve this question, it is important to determine when the red painting was applied. For example, if it all was applied afterwards, it may have been applied exclusively to places marked with the red colour code. The colour code is hidden under the paint, so we cannot tell if it's there under the paint or not. So the abundance of red in A may be the direct consequence of the abundance of colour codes in A. This is also a very simple explanation.
RE: Do Herbal A and Herbal B correspond to differences in imagery? - R. Sale - 25-04-2021
Maybe it's just a line to indicate the soil level, to separate the 'earthen' and 'aerial' parts of the plant.
RE: Do Herbal A and Herbal B correspond to differences in imagery? - Koen G - 25-04-2021
(25-04-2021, 04:42 PM)MarcoP Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.bravo Koen, Oocephalus and SamG!
To be honest all I did was find an old forum thread and spend too much time in Photoshop. But It's a fascinating subject so I wanted to put it in the spotlight. And it was a good opportunity to put Lisa's research on scribes to good use.
(25-04-2021, 06:18 PM)Anton Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.So the abundance of red in A may be the direct consequence of the abundance of colour codes in A. This is also a very simple explanation.
Sometimes the red paint is subtle though, or applied in such a way that it could not have covered any writing. Examples: f2v, f11v, f13r... Of course it is possible that the color annotations were scraped before the paint was applied to the desired surface.
I agree that maybe some differences have not been noticed yet, and I'd like to find more. So far, everything we found still allows for the possibility that A adds certain things to the initial state of the drawings (whether this was originally intended or not), which B does not add. If we had something like "B plants are more central on the page" or "A plants have branched stems more often", we would be able to rule out more options.
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In case it might help someone, here is the spreadsheet I made for quickly checking language, hand, bifolio etc You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.
RE: Do Herbal A and Herbal B correspond to differences in imagery? - geoffreycaveney - 26-04-2021
(25-04-2021, 07:16 PM)Koen G Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.In case it might help someone, here is the spreadsheet I made for quickly checking language, hand, bifolio etc You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.
Thank you very much Koen, this is very helpful.
The most interesting information to me in this file concerns "Hand 4". In the data table of Languages A & B and Hands 1-5 from the voynich.nu website as I recall, I suppose I would think of it as the "classical" Dialect and Hand identification table, the pages of folios 87, 88, 93, and 96 are identified as Language A and Hand 4. Your spreadsheet on the other hand, which I trust you have made more up-to-date, identifies all of these folio pages as Hand 1!
This distinction may actually be quite significant, since your spreadsheet -- and I understand that it incorporates Lisa Fagin Davis's analysis -- also identifies the Zodiac pages of folios 67-73 as Language B and Hand 4. These folio pages were unidentified as to Language and Hand in the old table that I referred to above.
Now if "Hand 4" wrote pages in both "Language A" and "Language B", this information could potentially be quite significant. However, neither the old table nor the updated table, as far as I can determine, shows any case of the same "Hand" writing in both "Languages". But the old table proposed that "Hand 4" wrote in "Language A", while the new table rather asserts that Hand 4 wrote in Language B, but on an entirely different set of pages. I would like to know more about this "Hand 4" person!
Sorry for verging somewhat off-topic from the thread, since I am replying to the data in the spreadsheet. Please let me know if it will be better to move this discussion to a new thread.
Geoffrey
RE: Do Herbal A and Herbal B correspond to differences in imagery? - ReneZ - 26-04-2021
(24-04-2021, 10:58 PM)Koen G Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.I will just link to the blog since some of the images I included are quire large:
You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.
Many thanks! This is extremely interesting, and will allow further speculation into the way and order in which the MS was composed.
What one sees most generally, is this order:
1. Figures drawn
2. Some of the painting (?), perhaps the more accurate part
3. Text written
4. More of the painting (?), perhaps the less accurate part
I think that "1 before 3" is mostly agreed by amateurs and specialists alike, but from reading about other manuscripts, to me even this is not necessarily a simple question.
Certainly, both orders can be found in other manuscripts, especially incomplete ones.
What seems incomplete in the Voynich MS is in fact the painting.
RE: Do Herbal A and Herbal B correspond to differences in imagery? - Koen G - 26-04-2021
(26-04-2021, 10:30 AM)ReneZ Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.What seems incomplete in the Voynich MS is in fact the painting.
I agree, though people like yourself and Nick Pelling understand this better than I do - I can imagine it was an issue as soon as color scans were available. What makes the matter more complex, is that the situation for each section is different, but there is a general trend of decline as a section progresses. In the Zodiac folios, disappearance of color (among which a ton of red) goes hand in hand with simplification of the figures. There is also something I think of as the "Rosettes palette", which is only yellow and blues.
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Getting back to the application of red in Herbal A / Scribe 1 folios, something I didn't mention in my post is the curious case of f101. To me, it looks almost certain that the recto side was forgotten by the red painter, while the verso got its intended share of red.
Since all other colors are present here (several greens, brown, blue, yellow), this page again suggests that red was a separate, final pass.