08-05-2024, 10:18 AM
Some things first, just to clarify where I currently stand on the matter of scribes as artists.
Rene and Lisa told us independently that it would be clearer if we used a different naming system for the plant styles, to somewhat disconnect them from Currier languages. So I decided on alpha and beta, i.e. there is an alpha style and a beta style. Then there are conflicting plants, where something goes wrong with the system, and unmarked plants, which don't have clear dividing features.
One potential problem with the way we approached things is that we started out from Currier languages, so our efforts picked up on differences between these two groups. We showed that there are undeniable differences between both styles.
Now, if we had started out from scribes, we may have found different properties still. We tried this though... We took our entire spreadsheet of over a hundred properties and sorted by scribe. We found a few things, but they are hard to work with since these other scribes are so rare. If something occurs only twice, it cannot be called a defining feature of a style. The only thing we found so far, if I recall correctly (we haven't even written anything down yet) is that these berry shapes with a "disk" attached to them, like in f94r, are a favorite in scribe 3's pages. It's not conclusive though, and not much to go on.
Overall, what I would say at this point is that the alpha style is found in scribe 1 pages, and the beta style in scribe 2 pages. The other scribes tend to have conflicting or barely marked pages. Or something like one marking feature expressed in an unusual way. I would probably go as far as saying that the alpha style and beta style belong to different artists, but it is unclear what happens in the in between zone.
Now your examples.
In summary:
* Quire 8 is weird, there is a constant flux of scribes, languages and subject matter.
* I see no strong indication that scribe 5 did their own plants, in fact in Q8 it looks like the alpha artist did the plants
* it can be argued that scribe 3 did their own plants, or at least that those pages where Lisa indicates scribe 3 are also special plant-wise. We see awkward implementations of alpha/beta features, conflicts, ....
* You include several examples from the "50's", which is also where our system struggles the most.
Rene and Lisa told us independently that it would be clearer if we used a different naming system for the plant styles, to somewhat disconnect them from Currier languages. So I decided on alpha and beta, i.e. there is an alpha style and a beta style. Then there are conflicting plants, where something goes wrong with the system, and unmarked plants, which don't have clear dividing features.
One potential problem with the way we approached things is that we started out from Currier languages, so our efforts picked up on differences between these two groups. We showed that there are undeniable differences between both styles.
Now, if we had started out from scribes, we may have found different properties still. We tried this though... We took our entire spreadsheet of over a hundred properties and sorted by scribe. We found a few things, but they are hard to work with since these other scribes are so rare. If something occurs only twice, it cannot be called a defining feature of a style. The only thing we found so far, if I recall correctly (we haven't even written anything down yet) is that these berry shapes with a "disk" attached to them, like in f94r, are a favorite in scribe 3's pages. It's not conclusive though, and not much to go on.
Overall, what I would say at this point is that the alpha style is found in scribe 1 pages, and the beta style in scribe 2 pages. The other scribes tend to have conflicting or barely marked pages. Or something like one marking feature expressed in an unusual way. I would probably go as far as saying that the alpha style and beta style belong to different artists, but it is unclear what happens in the in between zone.
Now your examples.
- This compares a herbal page to a pharma page. It seems clear that one of both sections relied at least in part on the other. Some roots from beta plants are copied faithfully in the pharma section. It is hard to compare these two for that reason. I need to put out the third part of the video, because we also talked about these things. You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. is relatively unmarked, but it has separate spikes on the roots, which is an alpha property, so this would be a conflict with the Currier language (B), but interestingly on a scribe 3 page.
- Similar to (1): the relation between pharma (all scribe 1) and Herbal is complicated. As you pointed out, one difference is the weird stem base of f17v. We called this "unnatural connections", an alpha property. Interestingly, You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. has "separate spikes on roots", another alpha property. I hadn't noticed this yet. I have no doubt that these plants are indeed by the same artist.
- F57r is from quire 8, a quire so bizarre that we singled it out for the second part of the video. This plant is a great example of the alpha style. If the alpha style is by scribe 1, then scribe 1 drew this plant and scribe 5 wrote the text (each paragraph in a different subdialect - Q8 is a mess!).
- The bottle-shaped calyxes with similar flowers... Yes, this is a very good observation, and we struggled with these. I agree with your view on them, and will add a few complicating factors.
* You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. is a good alpha plant: stem-root line, stalks connect to leaf center. It also recurs in the Pharma section.
* You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. is a good beta plant: root platform, grass, leaves on one side of the stem, somewhat beta-style leaves. It might also recur in the Pharma section (the blue thing on f99v), but much less clearly and more debatable. Now here's the weird thing: this is one of the very few B-folios to use red. And even more bizarrely, just like You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. and You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. it uses red and blue, but it switches them: red for the calyx and blue for the petals. What I hadn't noticed yet before you pointed this out, is that this flower borrowing coincides with a rare splash of red on a B page!
* You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. is unmarked. The use of red should point to A-folios, but this does not seem to apply to these foldouts at the end. This plant falls outside of our system (and happens to be by a rare scribe).
- f39r is decent beta style, but with an atypical flower (although I guess it is in the daisy class?). f95r2 is interesting because it shows the one property that might betray scribe 3, which is the (dotted) disk attached to a bulbous shape, no petals. See your earlier example of You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. .
- I can't add much here, apart from the fact that You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. (again scribe 3) has a conflict: there appears to be an attempt at grass (beta) but the structure is clearly alpha (all leaves attach to one point, flower on top).
- agree
In summary:
* Quire 8 is weird, there is a constant flux of scribes, languages and subject matter.
* I see no strong indication that scribe 5 did their own plants, in fact in Q8 it looks like the alpha artist did the plants
* it can be argued that scribe 3 did their own plants, or at least that those pages where Lisa indicates scribe 3 are also special plant-wise. We see awkward implementations of alpha/beta features, conflicts, ....
* You include several examples from the "50's", which is also where our system struggles the most.