04-03-2016, 02:09 AM
(03-03-2016, 05:02 PM)-JKP- wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.There's plenty of evidence that the VMS illustrator was exposed to western herbals. Look at the oak tree host for the ivy, the monks' heads in the roots, the animal shapes in others—these are all herbal tradition.
This coincides exactly with my impressions, as I wrote a bit earlier in this thread. There are many other details.
The question about drawing from nature or copying from previous manuscripts (in general) has been discussed intensively over the last decades, as is clear from the summaries in Minta Collins' book, which I can only recommend as near-obligatory reading for anyone interested in the herbal illustrations. It has been written for people without much prior knowledge about the herbal traditions, not for herbal scholars (who say that it is not accurate in some details). It does go into the material quite deeply and has many illustrations.
The book concentrates on pre-15th Century, and mentions that the 15th Century saw an explosion of illustated herbal MSs in several style directions.
One aspect in which the Voynich MS clearly differs from most (if not all) medieval illustrated herbals is the attention on the roots. I cannot remember seeing any other herbal that does this to such a level. The roots in the alchemical herbals are also special, but in a quite different way, as they tend to be more symbolic, and clearly don't represent nature at all.