Considered as visionary art

[-JKP-]

Excuse my dropping in from out of left field, but I read in Nature
last week a review of a new book about the manuscript. Now I've
been studying Rene Zandbergen's gorgeous website devoted to it.

Has anybody ever suggested that the VMS is no more (or less) than
a prodigious piece of what nowadays we call outsider or visionary
art, that happens to include a faux script as part of its
invention? If not, I'd be glad to elaborate on the notion, drawing
on my background in psychology and art appreciation.

I sometimes get smacked when I suggest that much of it may be original rather than copied from older sources (obviously older sources have also been consulted) and I do believe that even if the ideas and subject matter aren't original, the presentation certainly is, at least in some places.

It's also been suggested by me (and probably many others) that the text may have been added by someone else or at a later date. I can see at least two different hands in the main text and I believe Currier suggested it was several hands, so obviously more than one person was involved which might mean that it was created over a number of years or decades.


I haven't read Gordon Rugg's work, but I have seen the video where they mention his grille system of creating faux text and there are some threads about that on the forum (and probably on people's blogs).


Welcome to the forum. I think you'll find that when something has been studied in depth for almost a century by cryptologists, paleographers, linguists, artists, and medieval historians, that one has to dig a bit to come up with new insights and novel interpretations of the manuscript. Despite the effort it takes, I think it's worth it and new points of view are always welcome.