04-03-2016, 10:40 AM
(This post was last modified: 04-03-2016, 10:49 AM by Diane.
Edit Reason: clarify
)
I think that people are creating a mental model here from the idea that plants have to be "learned" by someone making a herbarium, or sitting down making a drawing, either from life or from copying another book.
The impression which I have received constantly from the botanical imagery is that the person(s) who *first* made the drawings were very familiar with the plants already, and that only the system underlying the imagery's construction had been 'learned', and more likely by custom and tradition than by formal schooling.
A European didn't have to see an angel or mermaid to draw one; there was no need to sit and copy one particular statue or manuscript - it was part of the common culture and you'd already seen a hundred before - so all a person needed was the skill to draw, and a knowledge of the conventions. You don't draw an ugly or a sexy-looking angel etc, and the 'mermaid' type should always have luxuriant hair etc.
Assuming I could draw well, I could sit down and draw a potato or tomato without having to draw from a 'specimen' or another book - and I think the drawings show that sort of familiarity with the plants. Especially when we see the drawings designed especially to invoke cultural associations, as some do... I think the draughtsmen lived and worked where the plants grew - of course how you identify the plants will affect the posited locus and (rather worse for objectivity) vice versa.
* I say 'first' because there is sufficient evidence, I believe, to think our present manuscript copied from exemplars. That we don't have anything identical is just bad historical luck.
The impression which I have received constantly from the botanical imagery is that the person(s) who *first* made the drawings were very familiar with the plants already, and that only the system underlying the imagery's construction had been 'learned', and more likely by custom and tradition than by formal schooling.
A European didn't have to see an angel or mermaid to draw one; there was no need to sit and copy one particular statue or manuscript - it was part of the common culture and you'd already seen a hundred before - so all a person needed was the skill to draw, and a knowledge of the conventions. You don't draw an ugly or a sexy-looking angel etc, and the 'mermaid' type should always have luxuriant hair etc.
Assuming I could draw well, I could sit down and draw a potato or tomato without having to draw from a 'specimen' or another book - and I think the drawings show that sort of familiarity with the plants. Especially when we see the drawings designed especially to invoke cultural associations, as some do... I think the draughtsmen lived and worked where the plants grew - of course how you identify the plants will affect the posited locus and (rather worse for objectivity) vice versa.
* I say 'first' because there is sufficient evidence, I believe, to think our present manuscript copied from exemplars. That we don't have anything identical is just bad historical luck.