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"Propeller" Flower Pods

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• RE: "Propeller" Flower Pods

  Sam G > 06-11-2016, 07:06 PM

  (04-11-2016, 03:46 PM)Diane Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Koen, Sam,
  
  The Voynich botanical palette (in fact the entire palette) avoids anything in the range pink-to-purple-to-black.  As a rule a flower naturally more pink will be coloured red and anything towards the darker purple-to-black will be coloured blue.  In some cases, where a flower or part of a plant is naturally coloured purple-to-black, that part may well be just omitted.  This is a custom seen in earlier Egypt - from which the western herbal tradition arose (believe it or not).  An example is Dracunculus vulgaris where the sheath is omitted in the 'botanical chamber' of Karnak and in medieval herbals, too.  It is also omitted in the Voynich image, but unlike the European herbals, that 'tabu' or restriction is observed throughout the Vms.  Another case of the purple sheath being omitted is in the 'banana plants group' image. (f.13r).  I have also noted a similar habit in earlier India (c.1st-2ndC AD) but that might be incidental.

  
  Interesting.  Do you have links to where you've discussed these examples on your blog (or to anywhere else where I can read about them)?
  
  

  Quote:I've noticed that a common reaction to  information about the palette is an immediate suggestion that  "maybe the painter had no pink/purple/black paint" but of course anyone could mix a little red pigment to white, or add blue to red or mix up green, blue and a bit of red to make a fair black.

  
  Right, and the painter does mix paints in some places, to create the "rotting plants" effect and also to create different shades of green and brown.
  
  

  Quote:The original makers evidently felt such colours were not to be used - not a latin European habit, but interestingly one which was preserved by the fifteenth century (or later) painters here.

  
  The use of color seems deliberate everywhere in the VMS, which is one of the reasons why I have a hard time with the idea that the colors were just slopped on by a later owner who didn't know what he was doing, although it does seem possible that the colors were added by multiple people.  I think the colors are an attempt at faithfully reproducing the colors in some other manuscript of which the VMS is a copy, but that of course leaves open the question of why the colors were done that way in the original.
  
  

  Quote:In addition - and I know this will be 'take it or leave it' no matter how many folios I've explained in detail: none of the images I've looked at in detail has proven to be a portrait of just one plant.
  
  They are more like a still life without the vase.  Except -  that there are limits to the groupings.  Each group depicts plants that occur naturally in proximity to one another, and which have traditional uses which are equivalent (as with the Musaceae) or complementary (that is, the way that a plant yielding a fibre will be habitually complemented by one which was traditionally used to dye that particular fibre).
  
  If a Silene is meant, the significance of both red and white petals, I'd expect, would mean that either the white-petalled or the blue-petalled would do.. whatever the thing was.  Just as example.. S. succulenta was used to make soap. And since any fibre-plant and any dye-plant will need the cloth and/or the dyer well-washed at the end of the process, it might be reasonable to add an image of that Silene in the group.
  
  Thinking of these as a kind of shopping list: "buy the fibre/cloth and don't forget to buy soap, too -either the white-flowered or the red-flowered kind"is the general idea.
  
  Or you can look at Latin herbals - more restful, anyway.

  
  Well, something odd is going on here.  We see this same basic flower motif repeated in five plants that are otherwise dissimilar, yet this motif seems to have no clear parallel in other botanical imagery and also no straightforward botanical interpretation.  I'm sure everyone who spends a lot of time looking at the VMS has noticed that these flowers occur in several places but I've never seen this pointed out or discussed anywhere.
  
  Maybe your explanation is right.  One thing that I wonder about however is if some aspects of the plant illustrations are basically "symbolic", in that they represent something by means other than visual similarity.  It seems like this must be true of the animal-shaped roots for instance, but I wonder if it might also be true even for the superficially more ordinary botanical forms.  So perhaps the flower motif in question here might represent a kind of flower that bears no visual resemblance to the motif itself, or it might refer to a growth phase, or to a use of the flower, etc.

• RE: "Propeller" Flower Pods

  -JKP- > 06-11-2016, 11:35 PM

  I've been calling them "spinner heads" but I like propeller.  
  
  
  It's my feeling that there are three basic kinds of drawing in the VMS plant sections (and perhaps some of the other sections)...
  

  • Naturalistic - many of the plant parts are very accurate and carefully (even if not expertly) drawn.
    
  • Symbolic - quite a number of parts appear to be mnemonic, or possibly metaphoric or allegorical in a different sense from being memory aids.
    
  • Stylistic - some elements strike me not as naturalistic or symbolic but as stylistic, in the aesthetic or design-tradition sense.
    

  I suspect that the "propeller" flowers might be somewhat stylized.
  
  It's been my feeling, almost from the beginning of seeing the VMS, that the illustrator was exposed to a variety of influences and took ideas from here or there as they fit the intended purpose. It's difficult to know which ones are intentional or coincidental when it's a small detail, but I think it's possible the propeller flowers may be partly stylized.
  
  
  For example, here is a decorative motif to mark the beginning of a new paragraph. It's not unusual, one can find floral decorations in a variety of regions and manuscripts, which means drawings like this could easily have been seen by the illustrator in any number of libraries, scriptoria, or universities during the 15th century. It's not an exact match, but maybe this kind of drawing (morphed with the actual shape of the flower) inspired some of the more stylized elements within the VMS.
  
        

• RE: "Propeller" Flower Pods

  Sam G > 08-11-2016, 09:41 PM

  (06-11-2016, 11:35 PM)-JKP- Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.I've been calling them "spinner heads" but I like propeller.  

  
  Okay, good to know that I'm not the only person who sees the resemblance.
  
  

  Quote:It's my feeling that there are three basic kinds of drawing in the VMS plant sections (and perhaps some of the other sections)...
  

  • Naturalistic - many of the plant parts are very accurate and carefully (even if not expertly) drawn.
    
  • Symbolic - quite a number of parts appear to be mnemonic, or possibly metaphoric or allegorical in a different sense from being memory aids.
    
  • Stylistic - some elements strike me not as naturalistic or symbolic but as stylistic, in the aesthetic or design-tradition sense.
    

  I suspect that the "propeller" flowers might be somewhat stylized.

  
  I have a similar view.  The illustrations certainly appear to aim for visual realism in some cases, but not in others.
  
  

  Quote:It's been my feeling, almost from the beginning of seeing the VMS, that the illustrator was exposed to a variety of influences and took ideas from here or there as they fit the intended purpose. It's difficult to know which ones are intentional or coincidental when it's a small detail, but I think it's possible the propeller flowers may be partly stylized.
  
  
  For example, here is a decorative motif to mark the beginning of a new paragraph. It's not unusual, one can find floral decorations in a variety of regions and manuscripts, which means drawings like this could easily have been seen by the illustrator in any number of libraries, scriptoria, or universities during the 15th century. It's not an exact match, but maybe this kind of drawing (morphed with the actual shape of the flower) inspired some of the more stylized elements within the VMS.
  
  

  
  Interesting... which manuscript is that from?
  
  I agree that there seem to be different stylistic influences in the VMS botanical illustrations, but one thing about the propellers is that the alternation of color in the petals also resembles patterns that can be seen in leaves and other kinds of flowers in many of the illustrations, suggesting that it's part of a broader aesthetic or stylistic trend in the manuscript rather than an isolated element that has been grafted in.  This kind of alternation of color seems to be very rare in European herbals.

• RE: "Propeller" Flower Pods

  -JKP- > 08-11-2016, 11:09 PM

  (08-11-2016, 09:41 PM)Sam G Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view....
  Interesting... which manuscript is that from?
  
  I agree that there seem to be different stylistic influences in the VMS botanical illustrations, but one thing about the propellers is that the alternation of color in the petals also resembles patterns that can be seen in leaves and other kinds of flowers in many of the illustrations, suggesting that it's part of a broader aesthetic or stylistic trend in the manuscript rather than an isolated element that has been grafted in.  This kind of alternation of color seems to be very rare in European herbals.

  
  
  Sam, I'll have to look it up and I may not be able to do that today but I'll get back to you when I locate the source.

• RE: "Propeller" Flower Pods

  Diane > 09-11-2016, 01:39 AM

  JKP
  
  

  Quote:It's my feeling that there are three basic kinds of drawing in the VMS plant sections (and perhaps some of the other sections)...

  • Naturalistic - many of the plant parts are very accurate and carefully (even if not expertly) drawn.
    
  • Symbolic - quite a number of parts appear to be mnemonic, or possibly metaphoric or allegorical in a different sense from being memory aids.
    
  • Stylistic - some elements strike me not as naturalistic or symbolic but as stylistic, in the aesthetic or design-tradition sense.
    
    

  I suspect that the "propeller" flowers might be somewhat stylized.

  
  I don't see that you need describe this as a 'feeling' about the botanical imagery - since it is the conclusion I had reached by 2008, and which has been demonstrated in the work I've published during the eight years since then.  (I'm not talking about the 'propeller' group, since I'm not sure what you mean, exactly).
  
  
  A couple of earlier people sensed something of the sort, including a couple in Friedman group, but without detailed analysis, explanation and historical context for each example, it can't be called any solid conclusion about the whole section.
  
  I didn't read d'Imperio's paper until after I'd drawn my own conclusions and begun publishing the explanations for these plant pictures with brief notes on the historical and cultural environment from which they had come. 
  
  Without that sort of detail and proof, the information cannot be relied on by the linguists and/or cryptographers, for whose benefit my work was being done.
  
  It is really good to see after so long - and it almost makes worthwhile both the earlier labour and the nuisance of having to cope with persons whose way of avoiding the implications of an intellectual argument is to try avoiding crediting that argument by "discrediting" the scholar's personal reputation. 
  
  Clearly, if my conclusions are able to be repeated now without that sort of reaction, then the atmosphere in Voynich studies really is changing at last, and perhaps at last too the aim of my publishing this material will be realised.  It was done to provide  linguists and cryptographers with something more solid to go on than hunches or hypotheses, presumptions of "herbal" character or facile and inappropriate comparative imagery.  But that, of course, was the state of things in 2008 - good to see how far we've come in since voynich.ninja got started.

• RE: "Propeller" Flower Pods

  Diane > 09-11-2016, 03:54 PM

  Sam
  
  

  Quote:Do you have links to where you've discussed these examples on your blog (or to anywhere else where I can read about them)?

  
  Yes, though the number of posts is probably too great to be useful if posted here.
   I was working through that section during 2011-2013 but felt it best to close most of the botanical posts.
  
  The Musaceae ones are still up;  the purple-to-black tabu is treated and illustrated there.
  
  The root mnemonics  are of a different nature, purpose and stylistics from the botanical images as such, and I also accord them a different date of origin (though Koen would disagree on that).  To bracket the appropriate period, for final form and for transmission to the western Mediterranean, I've used as comparative examples details from the Mashad Dioscorides and from the Cervera Bible.
  
  Occasionally one of the flowers is represented by a well-known stylised form (not from the Latin corpus; mostly Asian), but all the examples I can think of intended to represent a flower...  Not like the root mnemonics, which work a little differently.  
  
  I guess the easiest way to find anything on voynichimagery is to search for the folio number, [the older posts use the older Yale foliation so best cross-reference (You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.).  Otherwise, a phrase like "purple-to-black" should do it.  Easiest way to find the 'search' function is the separate "login/search" page in the header.
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