09-12-2017, 10:20 AM
It's a good point that many animal depictions would take on an artistic life of their own, and we could learn more by comparing actual art. It's als true that certain scribes weren't even able to draw the animals one would expect them to know from real life.
Still, it's also worth keeping in mind that certain animals could be seen in real life and hence kept closer to reality, while others were mostly transmitted through bestiaries etc. I still think these are different things.
For example, there are whole families of manuscripts where elephants have tusks that point upwards, like those of a boar. This is the effect of transmission since it's possible that the copyist had only one drawing for reference.
Aries, on the other hand, is translated in the vernacular is "ram", and it's more likely that European artists knew rams and thus were less likely to misinterpret their exemplar - or could supply one of their own if required.
This is why we see mammalian scorpios (with four straight legs and rounded ears) but no insect rams.
My point is this: if the VM Aries somehow differs from the traditional depiction, it is in the case of this farm animal possible that someone in the line of transmission drew from life. It should be our aim to link this to other known images, but comparing to actual species might also provide valuable information.
For example, just look at Taurus in Arab manuscripts, which is clearly influenced by local species. I don't see why making this link would be irrelevant.
![[Image: fe65bf84e18389f4acf040bb15b2ebfb--taurus-art-gemini.jpg]](https://i.pinimg.com/736x/fe/65/bf/fe65bf84e18389f4acf040bb15b2ebfb--taurus-art-gemini.jpg)
Still, it's also worth keeping in mind that certain animals could be seen in real life and hence kept closer to reality, while others were mostly transmitted through bestiaries etc. I still think these are different things.
For example, there are whole families of manuscripts where elephants have tusks that point upwards, like those of a boar. This is the effect of transmission since it's possible that the copyist had only one drawing for reference.
Aries, on the other hand, is translated in the vernacular is "ram", and it's more likely that European artists knew rams and thus were less likely to misinterpret their exemplar - or could supply one of their own if required.
This is why we see mammalian scorpios (with four straight legs and rounded ears) but no insect rams.
My point is this: if the VM Aries somehow differs from the traditional depiction, it is in the case of this farm animal possible that someone in the line of transmission drew from life. It should be our aim to link this to other known images, but comparing to actual species might also provide valuable information.
For example, just look at Taurus in Arab manuscripts, which is clearly influenced by local species. I don't see why making this link would be irrelevant.