The VM as Outsider Art

[oshfdk]

Here is my little essay on the nature of the VM, prompted by a cursory glance through the Yale University edition of 2016.

Thank you for the essay! Personally, I like all new texts about the MS, there is always something to ponder over.

I realize that this is a bit of a different approach than most here, but I'd love to hear any thoughts.

I'd say what you present is more of less "the default hypothesis" about the Voynich manuscript at least for the recent decades. I've looked up "outsider art" in the Voynich maillist, the first result I found was a discussion in 2014 in the context of looking for counter-arguments to this hypothesis. I suppose, the reason your essay is different from most other things I read here is because these other discussions are attempts to find something over and beyond this default hypothesis.

Overall, my favorite outsider/individual art hypothesis is the XKCD version  

The lush, carefully planned illustrations of more famous contemporary manuscripts (such as books of hours) provide quite a contrast with the hasty drawings of the VM. While somewhat above the level of idle sketches or doodles, the VM illustrations nevertheless convey an impression of hurry, of ideas developing in progress, and a process of unfolding development rather than pre-planned exposition.

I don't think it's reasonable to compare illustrations in the Voynich manuscript to the top quality artwork of the time. When researching planetary charts, I've looked through quite a few technical astrological/astronomical manuscripts of the XI - XV centuries, and I'd say the quality of the drawings in VMS is high compared to these other manuscripts. Especially if you discount the coloring job and focus on line drawings only. Also a lot of charts show large numbers of evenly spaced elements/figures, the positions of which were most certainly preplanned when starting the drawing.

While the VM is certainly mysterious and unique, that mystery may only be resolvable by the impossible dream of tracing the transient fantasies of one isolated and abnormal creative individual 600 years ago.

I tend to disagree, even if the Voynich manuscript is a personal fantasy work of one isolated artist and has no meaningful text, the size of the work and its structure can make it possible to get some understanding of the underlying ideas. Could be hard, but I'm not sure it's impossible.