(20-12-2016, 08:37 AM)Koen Gh. wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.I find this section of the manuscript very hard to interpret in terms of how the image evolved and where and when it's from. These folios have the most medieval air about them, in my opinion, together with the rosettes foldout. I'm not sure of much, so only some loose comments:
- Last time I mentioned this people disagreed, but I insist that he has six fingers.
...
I really can't tell if it's six fingers or five because the top (the rounded part) of the sixth "finger" is very light, almost not there, and seems to meld with whatever that "thing" is that is extending beyond his hand.
On the subject of androgyny, it was very much part of human culture until recently (and still is, in some parts of the world where there is a word that means "the third sex"). In Mediterranean culstures, men regularly castrated themselves (or had themselves castrated) so they could be "goddesses" in the temples, and eunuchs served in palaces into the middle ages.
Also, Pagan attitudes about nudity and sexuality were very different from later Christian attitudes. It was not seen as sinful, but as part of life, and was not kept in the closet. These old cultures saw no need to hide the human body with fig leaves or to deny a gray scale in human sexuality and their artwork was very explicit in documenting these customs.
There's a very interesting documentary film (from the 60s??) on sexual customs in remote Asian villages and some of them still lived this way at the time the film was made, sharing spouses, having children with different men, bringing them up together as one big extended family—all normal activities to them. There are also cultures where effeminate men who like to care for children are welcomed as "aunts" to help share the responsibilities of child-rearing.