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If you made the VMs, ... - Printable Version

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If you made the VMs, ... - R. Sale - 22-09-2020

If you made the VMs, what would it be? How is the information presented? Why were these images and this text created - either in whole or in part? - where there have already been such a variety of suggested interpretations. And what can be learned from this manuscript as it is investigated, in the current circumstance?

If you made the VMs, you would already be familiar with the old traditions and with the relevant science of that historical era. 

If you made the VMs, you would pretty much need to confine information, references, methods and techniques to the first part of the 1400s - unless some excuse is provided. Just to avoid anachronism. While some complexity and sophistication must be allowed.

If you made the VMs, is it false and meaningless? Is it intended to be scientific or literate? Is it a facade for a disguised reality- encoded, encrypted - or whatever?

My view is that the VMs is the best surviving example of an attempt to embody Roger Bacon's first rule of obfuscated communication, which is *not* to let the fact of obfuscation be plainly obvious as in many early code systems. And for the investigator having the necessary familiarity with tradition (heraldry) and with science (botany) as would be contemporary with the parchment dates, then one of the first cracks in the VMs facade takes the shape of a nebuly line.


RE: If you made the VMs, ... - -JKP- - 22-09-2020

I don't think I could make the VMS. it would end up with lavish, highly colored drawings and almost every inch of the page covered. Even if I began with an intention to keep it simple, it would end up that way. I can't seem to stick with simple. I always get more ideas for something I can add.

I think some of the appeal of the VMS is in its simplicity and the balance of the text/imagery and spaces. It is deceptively simple until you start to delve into it and then the carefully crafted details (both imagery and possible symbology) become more evident.


RE: If you made the VMs, ... - Linda - 23-09-2020

If it were me, set in that timeframe, it would be a secret copy of my notes from reading books (and/or herbaria, atlases, rutters, etc.) that i had borrowed or come upon that i had the opportunity to have been alone with for some time. (In university, my way of studying was to summarize textbooks or lectures on the topics within on the fly leaves so that was all i needed to study come exam time.) First i would boil it down to the basics. it could be the essence of a lifetime's worth of reading or experience. Perhaps some of it was read to me and i took notes in my own shorthand (not me, but just imagining possibilities). The copying would have had to be done in such a way as the owners of the books, or anyone else for that matter, would not know that i carry around copies of their possessions (i didn't know about Roger Bacon's first rule until you said, but it does seem that ambiguity is key, or why would we have so many versions of what is going on with this manuscript). And yet they would be ever useful to me in recreating the information at a later date, either for myself, or perhaps for others also. Someone could take my dictation and obtain the original, or at least an abridged version (being perhaps my own summaries thereof). The drawings would be chock full of visual mnemonic information that i could use to not only recreate the original visual information, but which incorporated scads of detail to go along with it, such as an accompanying narrative, references to further reading, tables of data, or further layers to the drawings. 

This summer i gardened, with 10 kinds of tomatoes plus various varieties that came from multiples of each as they were mostly hybrids. I have names for some of the standouts, like monkey balls, and butterscotch. They remind me of a shape for one, the colour accent of another, but i could tell you all the other attributes of each also from the association of the prominent one (to me). I could probably fill multiple notebooks with my descriptions of them all, but I could also probably draw up a single page of memory devices for each kind i grew this year, and be able to draw or paint the originals 20 years from now by looking at that page. I could probably add to that already random looking group of drawings some details that would remind me which was the biggest, the sweetest, the darkest, more details about the shapes, had a point, had a dimple, ripened early, produced well, etc. All that on one page to describe 50 different tomato plants and everything i found to be important about them, and no one would have any idea what it was, because it came from my perception of traits that have been experienced only by me and possibly a few of those i have shared the tomatoes with in some way, traits that might not even be noticed by others, much less thought of in the same way. One way i might combine them would be by original tomato type, so maybe 10 nymphs with various attributes (poses) and/ or brandishments, or one plant with slight differences in the fruit of each branch, if i were to use similar drawings to express my tomato season results. In either case, one page to capture several notebooks worth of info that i could still spew out from looking at the little stand in reminder drawings. 

Unlike JKP's ornate always wanting to add more attempt, i think mine would resemble the vms more, the simplicity is built into the boiling down process, there is nothing more to add, it is already all there, the essence of the important. 

The danger, of course, is the loss of that original perception, of the one(s) who can translate it. Think of someone trying to decipher my tomato mnemonics without me to explain in English what each visual meant or stood for, or even the topic of the page.


RE: If you made the VMs, ... - Koen G - 23-09-2020

I wouldn't be able to, it's too clever. Also, since I can't draw, I would use stick figures instead of nymphs. 

At least the easy conclusion would be that it was made by a five year old  Big Grin


RE: If you made the VMs, ... - bi3mw - 23-09-2020

I would not have drawn the plants as stylized as I suspect in the original VMS. In the the middle of the 15th century the turnaround came in this area, which means that the plants were drawn more and more realistically.

So in my VMS we would have it much easier with the determination of the plants Wink


RE: If you made the VMs, ... - R. Sale - 24-09-2020

To paraphrase JKP: Deceptively simple with roughly rendered illustrations carefully crafted to disguise a hidden level of subtle sophistication. And that sophistication seems to be connected with and derived from the cultural traditions and the social excesses associated primarily with the Duchy of Burgundy in the years after 1430 CE.

So, the original inquiry has gone a bit wide of the mark, though discussion is appreciated. It was not intended as a make your own version of the VMs situation as a basis for creation, but a question of how and why would *a person* make the VMs - the one that we have?

For example, if you made the VMs, why would you use nebuly lines as leaf margins in the botanical section? I'm no expert on botany, though I have looked for information. That information tells me that there are *no examples* of plants with leaf margins that follow a pattern that resembles a nebuly line. Perhaps I am incorrect and there is an example but where is it? And the VMs has several examples of nebuly lines as leaf margins with single bulbs and multiple bulbs, not just the one. What is the reason to repeatedly introduce this incongruous element into the plant illustrations? As if it wasn't strange enough already? If you made the VMs. why would you do that? Even in the 1400's it would be known that this is not a valid association. <<Has anyone every seem other examples??>> So why do it?

For a long time this problem has been ignored. Sure it's a botanical 'anomaly' - but it's just a wobbly line. However that is no longer true. It is not just a line. It is a pattern very clearly associated with heraldry and known as a *nebuly* line. And heraldry was associated with 1400s tradition and culture almost as intimately as air and water. The VMs creator would have known this. Her/his contemporaries would have known this. So why do it?

Perhaps it is an example of the combination of two disparate and contradictory elements to intentionally create an oxymoron. Ostensibly this might produce an interpretation of things and sources that are highly exotic; that this book was from a place where oxymorons exist. But in modern light, a lot of modern light, the deception is revealed. Meanwhile, the nebuly line is relevant to other lines line of VMs investigation and, more importantly, leads to another example of creative deception / idiosyncratic representation in the example of an uncommon cosmic structure which possesses an amazing combination of structural correspondences and visual disjunctures relative to BNF Fr. 565. (Plus Harley 334)

Creative deception becomes absolutely clear in the depiction on VMs White Aries. Interpreting the blue-striped tub patterns according to the rules of heraldry, there are two different paths of potential interpretation. This is the point where deception is conclusively proven. There are two paths of interpretation concerning the way the stripes are oriented according to a traditional heraldic definitions.

The first path is naturally a radial interpretation - like spokes on a wheel. Each character is turned upright prior to interpretation. This produces a pair of potential heraldic examples from the tub patterns that appear to have no relevant significance. The second path is more subtle, more deceptively simple, based on the patterns alone - isolated on the page. Paired blue stripes do have historical implications. And in combination with red hats this produces a unique historical combination indicating the Fieschi popes and the origins of an ongoing religious tradition. If you made the VMs, why would you do that?

Deception is revealed, but what does it hide. If you made the VMs, why would you do that?


RE: If you made the VMs, ... - -JKP- - 24-09-2020

There are a lot of plants with extremely wavy leaf margins and ruffled leaves are hard to draw.

It's possible some of the more symbolic-looking shapes are inspired by nature or that they serve a dual purpose (naturalistic and symbolic).

Kalanchoe or Bucephalandra are examples of plants that might inspire nebuly-like leaf margins. There is one species of that specifically has a nebuly-like margin (it is both indented and ruffled in a smooth regular way) but I can't remember the name of the specific species. Ruffles kale might also be drawn that way by someone who wanted to get the idea across but in a simplified way.


RE: If you made the VMs, ... - RobGea - 24-09-2020

Which folios have plants with nebuly lines as leaf margins ?


RE: If you made the VMs, ... - R. Sale - 24-09-2020

JKP,

Sure, as usual, there are always 'what ifs' and fuzzy maybes in trying to interpret the VMs. Absolute certainty is virtually unattainable. It is what it is. Nevertheless the examples can be quite clear in the way they are drawn. There is a regular series of rounded, bulbous projections and indentations along the edge of the various leaves, which real plants do not do. And as such there apparently are no botanical examples. Not to mention matching to other plant characteristics from the same VMs representation.


RobGea,

See f35v, You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. has some good parts, You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. is a beauty.
You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. has triple headed bulbous projections on the outside. You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. is a multiheaded version and would make an excellent scallop-shell patterned cloud band, if it wasn't painted green.

There are also nebuly lines as roots in You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. and in lower parts of the main foot of f18v.

Is any of this actually represented in nature?

Have you gone through the "Wolkenband" discussion threads?


RE: If you made the VMs, ... - -JKP- - 24-09-2020

f35v looks like oak leaves
f41r looks like an attempt to draw the infurled and ruffled leaves of a number of plants, like kale
f41v looks like a simplified version of a type of leaf that is so delicate and frilly it is REALLY hard to draw, even for botanical artists
f50r looks like You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. (look it up on Google images)
f94r there are several plants that have leaves like this. They are somewhat fern-like but with butterfly-shaped leaflets instead of spear-like leaflets. Here are just two examples:

         

Moonwort (Botrychium lunaria) also has leaves like this, as do some forms of maidenhair fern.




All of these leaf margins are represented in nature and there are some that are even more unusual. The VMS drawings are not exact, but they are close enough to get the idea across.