Is the archer a "foreigner"?

[-JKP-]

But then they wouldn't have used a crossbow.
The use of such a device suggests bringing modernity into the imagery, looking forwards not backwards.

I think it's a mistake to focus too specifically on the crossbow. There's no way to know which details are important and which are at the whim of the illustrator unless you consider the OVERALL composition of the zodiac series. I gathered and studied almost 600 more-or-less complete zodiacs (almost 7200 drawings, almost all of them in color, plus about 80 incomplete zodiacs) to try to answer this question. I wanted to know WHICH details are the KEY details (and which ones can vary without changing the overall theme).


My research suggests the two-legged archer is the KEY part, regardless of the style of bow. The VMS illustrator MAY have copied a crossbowman, but is just as likely to have substituted the crossbow (from any number of sources). So we can't know for sure if the exemplar was a zodiac crossbow. But there IS a high probability that the VMS illustrator copied a human or human-like Sagittarius rather than a centaur. This is one of the patterns that identifies the VMS zodiac subgroup. 

I've been trying to convey this on my zodiac blogs, but maybe I'm not doing a good enough job of it. I'll try to distill it down...


I spent years studying HOW MUCH individual illustrators varied drawings (e.g., mirroring them or changing the colors or style of figures) while still staying true to the exemplar. There are examples where everything is thematically identical, but each figure is drawn in its own way.

My research indicates that it's the distinction between centaur and human-like figure that is important, TOGETHER WITH which style of drawing was chosen for Libra, Cancer, and Gemini (also Capricorn as goat rather than as goat-fish but unfortunately the VMS doesn't include Capricorn). There are KEY themes and KEY details and the rest tends to vary with the illustrator. The style of bow can vary while still staying true to the overall thematic content.



This subgroup diverges significantly from the much-more-common Aratus tradition and is small percentage-wise. I think this is important. Whoever created the VMS zodiac drawings was probably not a conservative/traditionalist.

So, taking a bit of a leap at this point (I don't have research to back up this part, it's just an idea), IF the VMS illustrator were in the theater-going/tournament-going crowd or had access to a library with stories like Tristan and Isolde, Roman de la Rose, etc., then perhaps they chose popular characters as models for Gemini and Sagittarius.