Qasr mosaic leopard and VMS Leo/August image

[Sam G]

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.

For me, the distinction is crucial.

The statement that an image looks like a certain animal (or plant) is the conclusion of the reader. It is made on the basis of the
experience of the reader. What is meant in the illustration is based on the experience of the artist / draughtsman, who lived
and worked 600 years ago.

Well, I probably could have phrased that a bit better, but what I mean is that to correctly identify an element in the VMS (or anywhere else) is basically equivalent to knowing what the illustrator intended.  That's basically the thing we're trying to figure out.

For instance, when we ask "what plant is this?", we are essentially asking "what plant was the illustrator attempting to depict?"  Obviously it's not easy or even possible to know this in many cases.  And the plant may by chance resemble some other plant more than the one which was intended.

It's a complicated topic, especially when talking about images that (as I propose) have been modified by different people over generations of copying.  I was basically addressing Marco's statement to the effect that attempting to understand the intentions of the illustrator is something that could only be known by recovering a direct written statement from the illustrator himself.  It seems to me that understanding the intended purpose of the illustrations is one of the main reasons for studying them.