Marco:
First of all, I almost posted that exact same Magritte painting in my previous post.
Obviously anyone can claim to see whatever he wants in any illustration. So clearly there can never be universal agreement on the identification of any element in any image.
I disagree that there is a meaningful distinction between identifying an image and understanding the intentions of the illustrator. Saying "this is an image of a feline animal" and "the illustrator intended this to be an image of a feline animal" are, in my view, functionally equivalent statements. (I should add: assuming he's the original composer of the illustration and not a copyist, etc.)
I've said that the entity in question is descended from an image similar to the tree from the Qasr mosaic via several/many generations of copying. That seems like a fairly concrete statement to me.
In the VMS image, though not in the original, it also looks like this entity is a the end of the animal's tail, since the tail disappears behind the animal's body and tree-like entity emerges from the other side. Obviously we can't be sure, and like I said, any question about it is functionally a question about what the illustrator intended since it's not an actual physical thing, it's just some ink on a piece of parchment.
I get the impression that you don't feel comfortable saying that what I'm proposing is wrong, yet at the same time you don't like the implications, and want to bow out on a technicality. That's fine with me.
First of all, I almost posted that exact same Magritte painting in my previous post.
Obviously anyone can claim to see whatever he wants in any illustration. So clearly there can never be universal agreement on the identification of any element in any image.
I disagree that there is a meaningful distinction between identifying an image and understanding the intentions of the illustrator. Saying "this is an image of a feline animal" and "the illustrator intended this to be an image of a feline animal" are, in my view, functionally equivalent statements. (I should add: assuming he's the original composer of the illustration and not a copyist, etc.)
I've said that the entity in question is descended from an image similar to the tree from the Qasr mosaic via several/many generations of copying. That seems like a fairly concrete statement to me.
In the VMS image, though not in the original, it also looks like this entity is a the end of the animal's tail, since the tail disappears behind the animal's body and tree-like entity emerges from the other side. Obviously we can't be sure, and like I said, any question about it is functionally a question about what the illustrator intended since it's not an actual physical thing, it's just some ink on a piece of parchment.
I get the impression that you don't feel comfortable saying that what I'm proposing is wrong, yet at the same time you don't like the implications, and want to bow out on a technicality. That's fine with me.