Sleeve focus thread

[-JKP-]

1. Direction and Color

One of the things I noticed when looking through my zodiacs (which number around 700 sets but I usually only mention 560 because only about 560 are complete or virtually complete (12 figures per set)) is that even if the illustrator copied from an existing tradition (e.g., crayfish versus crab, dragon versus scorpion), he often flipped the figure around to face the other way.

Color was also at the discretion of the illustrator BUT it depended on the figure—I noticed that some things tended to retain the same color within certain traditions (like the blue fish).



2. Theme

But... on another line of questioning... as far as subject matter goes... and I think this is important... it took about 500 zodiac series before I could evaluate what mattered and what did not...

Was a satyr a different tradition from a two-legged man (as opposed to a centaur), was a longbow a different tradition from a crossbow? Was a female Virgo a different tradition from male (usually yes, but not always), was a sitting Virgo different from a standing one, was a scale-with-figure different from a scale-without figure?

These are important questions and you simply can't discern the answers with less than 500 zodiac series. Until I had that many, I would go through them time-and-again and scratch my chin. I simply wasn't sure. In fact, I wish I had 1,000 series (12,000 images) rather than only 560 (6,720), but it's becoming extremely difficult to find ones I haven't already collected (I have to wait until more are digitized).


After scrutinizing this growing collection for years now, I have gradually come to the impression that it did matter (most of the time) whether it was a centaur or a two-legged figure (it seems to split into traditional or humanist themes*). In other words, the traditions were traditional (centaur) or humanist (two-legged satyr or human), but the two legs could be a man or several variations of satyr and still be essentially the same.


And... I have noticed that it doesn't seem to matter whether it was a longbow or a crossbow (as far as I can tell, so far)... which has direct relevance to the image just posted.


So we have two elements...

• a flipped image (doesn't matter, they did it all the time), and
• a figure with similar clothing but a different kind of bow... which, as far as I can tell, didn't matter—the illustrator chose the bow.


Now, there might be stages IN BETWEEN the zodiacs I have in my collection (ones that are probably lost forever) that could help fine-tune the individual choices between satyr and human or longbow and crossbow, but from what I have seen so far, the kind of bow was not a significant indicator of tradition... it was a choice.

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* I've found that the terms traditional or humanist seem to work reasonably well in describing the break in zodiac traditions that my research suggests occurred in northeast France/Flanders and which slowly migrated east and south to create the traditions that most closely resemble the VMS zodiac figures.

The group that splits off not only represents the archer as a two-legged creature rather than a centaur, but also represents Gemini as a human couple rather than as celestial brothers. So "humanist" seems like a comfortable working term for the present time even though this break in tradition happened in the early medieval period and is not in parallel with the "humanists" of the 16th century. If someone can think of a better term, I am open to suggestions.