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+--- Thread: Voynichy Faces: BNF Coislin 174 (/thread-6145.html)
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Voynichy Faces: BNF Coislin 174 - eggyk - 02-10-2026
I'm not sure if it's definitely worth its own thread, but the faces on the last page of this manuscript caught my eye; they seem quite voynichy to me.
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1376-1425AD
Unknown location? (Supposedly later owned by "Daniel Caetani of Cremona" ~1527AD, so was in Italy at that point).
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I'm actually getting a little doubtful as I write this post... have these faces already been shared and are common knowledge? I really feel like i've seen them before but I simply cannot find them mentioned anywhere.
RE: Voynichy Faces: BNF Coislin 174 - Koen G - 02-10-2026
The faces are pretty Voynichy, also the faces of the animals. The bodies... not so much
Maybe this is an indication that artists with relatively low skill trend towards similar techniques? Or that the way they implement common techniques leads to similar results?
RE: Voynichy Faces: BNF Coislin 174 - eggyk - 02-10-2026
I wonder if we're looking at the "stick man" standard face of that time. We would only really see it in cases of low quality drawings being kept, which is less likely.
I have noticed multiple times that as you go further back, the drawings become more "voynichy" in general. But that might be the same as saying "as we look further back, the drawings get worse in quality".
RE: Voynichy Faces: BNF Coislin 174 - gerrydelasel - 02-10-2026
I think the Voynich artist copied all the nymphs from a single reference image, which is why they are nearly all in the same 'scratching her arse' pose (and possibly why they are all women). As soon as you see one in a different pose the artist clearly struggled; the proportions fall apart. Absurdly long arms, deformed elbows, etc.
RE: Voynichy Faces: BNF Coislin 174 - rikforto - 02-10-2026
(02-10-2026, 11:25 AM)Koen G Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Maybe this is an indication that artists with relatively low skill trend towards similar techniques?They didn't just trend---they were enculturated to them, and there was a market rewarding efficiency and consistency! Not for nothing, the brow-to-nose stroke looks like the kind of letterform a scribe would be expected to execute consistently and confidently, and that is absolutely something that would get passed around. (This kind of penmanship-art connection is cross-culturally common; East Asian art consciously uses the same brush strokes as calligraphy, and I'm given to understand the qalam and its techniques enjoys in a similar synergy in the Muslim world.) It would be an over-correction to call the art in the Voynich good, but there is a good deal of craftsmanship on display because there is a consistency in form and technique through the Zodiac section that comes from experience, knowledge, and intentionality. Which is to say that placing faces like these in a place in the early 1400s would very probably tell us something about the artist's milieu.
Interestingly, the work in question looks like it is in Greek, which has been posited as an influence on the script more than once
RE: Voynichy Faces: BNF Coislin 174 - Jorge_Stolfi - 02-10-2026
(02-10-2026, 01:24 PM)rikforto Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.there is a good deal of craftsmanship on display because there is a consistency in form and technique through the Zodiac section that comes from experience, knowledge, and intentionality.
Quite the opposite. One can see the evolution of his nymph drawings from Aries 1 onwards, from absolutely horrible to just bad.
RE: Voynichy Faces: BNF Coislin 174 - eggyk - 02-10-2026
(02-10-2026, 02:49 PM)Jorge_Stolfi Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.(02-10-2026, 01:24 PM)rikforto Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.there is a good deal of craftsmanship on display because there is a consistency in form and technique through the Zodiac section that comes from experience, knowledge, and intentionality.
Quite the opposite. One can see the evolution of his nymph drawings from Aries 1 onwards, from absolutely horrible to just bad.
Can the same be said for the faces, though? If anything, Aries 1 has some of the neatest faces in the whole set. The later faces seem to progressively worse.
Sagittarius has some absolutely awful faces and bodies actually, arguably the worst overall. I mean look at these:
compared to Aries 1:
RE: Voynichy Faces: BNF Coislin 174 - rikforto - 02-10-2026
(02-10-2026, 02:49 PM)Jorge_Stolfi Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Quite the opposite. One can see the evolution of his nymph drawings from Aries 1 onwards, from absolutely horrible to just bad.I think you have to make some very fine judgments to detect that much of a difference:
The first is from Aires and the second from Sagittarius. My tastes are the second is worse---I tend to think the nymphs on Sagittarius look a little more rushed, but I am cautious about reading too much out of such subjective judgements. Several hundred nymphs into the cycle I do think the artist has sharpened the stroke on the nose a bit, but it's the same basic shape and gesture, and the other orbital bone stroke is about the same. The chin is better formed (and done once, not redone) on the first. The eyes line up better in the second on this particular example, but that's something varies throughout. These deviations are pretty small at a glance. (Eggyk, you posted before I finished, but I wrote this first!)
I'm not going to die on the hill that these are particularly good---the arms sure are an experience to see:
But shoulders, while better done in better quality works, are not particularly naturalistic in medieval art:
No surprise---the humanist emphasis on correct anatomy came from the humanist interest in anatomy, which was a taboo at the time. It was also coupled with a renewed interest in perspective not seen since antiquity.
There's a general assumption that naturalism is better---the long reach of the humanists---so here is third-rate artist Pablo Picasso on the matter:
It's interesting to look here at where he is downstream from the humanists---those neck muscles!---but also where he's offering a flatter and distorted perspective that shows us things representationally, as in the guitar and shoulder alsinment. I want to stress I'm not suggesting the VMS arm above is basically a lost Picasso because I agree it is worse than just stylized, but it is a mistake not to see method, training, and experience in the things which are consistent, especially when others seem to style their work much the same way.
Hence why BNF Coislin 174 is of interest; it is evidence into lower quality art from the time where the arms are also...certainly related to the body in a way:
What is revealing here is not just what craftsmanship apparently included---a stylized way of sketching faces---but what it excluded---detailed knowledge of anatomy and perspective. Part of being a craftsman is knowing how to get a job done, and evidence is that shoulders anatomy and perspective were not what was being valued for this kind of work, else we would see that in the exemplary works. It bears repeating: it is a mistake not to see method, training, and experience in the things which are consistent.
RE: Voynichy Faces: BNF Coislin 174 - Koen G - 02-10-2026
One thing where the VM differs from most bad art you'll see is that the hundreds of human figures are, all in all, quite stable in their proportions. Usually, a hallmark of an underdeveloped artist is that they can't keep their figures' proportions in check. It would be interesting to find manuscript where the apparent "cookie cutter" method is similarly exploited.
Unfortunately, the comparison with Eggy's picture is made more difficult because this is a planisphere, and the constellations are already unnaturally positioned, stretched, contorted... so these images should not necessarily be taken at face value as representations of how the artist would spontaneously draw things.
RE: Voynichy Faces: BNF Coislin 174 - gerrydelasel - 02-10-2026
(02-10-2026, 02:49 PM)Rickforto Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.But shoulders, while better done in better quality works, are not particularly naturalistic in medieval art:
I do not understand what you mean by this? The examples you showed are very well proportioned and anatomically competent.