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RE: Merpersons
-JKP- > 24-01-2016, 12:18 AM
(23-01-2016, 10:07 PM)David Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.The settings for these 'mermaids' is not very orthodox.
By their very nature, mermaids were used to illustrated far away places in the deep sea.
I would suggest that identifying these objects as mermaids would set the location as somewhere far away and nautical. And in anycase, the setting seems far too ripine for a mermaid.
So what are they? I have some thoughts but nothing ready for publishing at the moment. But I am concentrating on something continental, not nautical, in keeping with the general feel of the pages.
The Hunterian image, by the way, is not a very prominent image. It extends out of a initial on a page, and isn't very large at all. I suggest the only reason the modern curators fixated on it was because it is a rare example of an extension to a decorated initial, usually such decorations are confined to the inside of the letter.
Notwithstanding that, I admit there is a comparison to be made, and well done for spotting it.
Mermaid-like creatures with two tails are based on depictions of Pisces with more stars (a woman and two fish) and typically have two tails—some with the earth goddess holding the fish and some with the earth goddess with fish legs. The reason the legs always bend up back toward the hands is because originally the fish were fish, not legs, but are perceived as legs and became iconographically represented that way (similarly unicorns, which were originally split-hoof animals, probably goats, have become horses rather than goats according to popular taste).
Mermaid-like creatures illustrated in the sea usually depict sirens, mermaids, and variations on the Noah Jonah story.
When they are fresh-water "mermaids" they are either water creatures (along with fish, crayfish, turtles, etc.) or they are melusines which were originally Pagan fresh-water goddesses/sprites/faeries but which later became associated with specific legends as Paganism declined and Christianity spread. They are found in Frankish/Gallic texts as well as English in the 14th and 15th centuries, first as textual stories, later as illustrated legends. -
RE: Merpersons
-JKP- > 24-01-2016, 03:01 AM
(21-01-2016, 09:45 AM)David Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view....
In any case, I suggest the mermaid imagery depicts the "ruling over Rahab", a Hebrew seamonster representing chaos, who is mentioned in Psalm 89 (which is a bit water heavy in any case) - the image shows the human essence of the monster being lifted away from the beast in God's good light.
...
If the imagery is based on Frankish/Gallic legends of Mélusine/Melucina then the separation of the fish and the woman might be due to the fact that she stepped in and out of her fish role/persona on Saturdays, the day she bathed. -
RE: Merpersons
david > 24-01-2016, 08:33 AM
Yes, regional water legends / water goddesses are a much more fertile hunting ground for the VM imagery than the nautical.
But I suggested the Rahab motif for the Hunterian mermaid because that's part of the subject of that Psalm. -
RE: Merpersons
Diane > 24-01-2016, 07:31 PM
Don,
I looked at each of those traditions in detail, and a fair number of images from Latin Europe, not just in manuscripts but the range of media any person might encounter there at that time..
My conclusions you know, I think, but in essence: no fifteenth century Latin Christian in Europe could possibly have created this the imagery in this manuscript from his own imagination or from nothing but fifteenth century Latin manuscript art. By Latin European, I mean European Christian, excluding the Byzantine regions.
I'm not talking just about the figure you call a mermaid, here. I'm talking about the significance of particular images and particular details.
Thing is, everyone looks away from the difficult parts and concentrates on the few that look more familiar. So the reality of its 'foreign-ness' never had to be too upsetting.
Understandable.
But you see why I can't encourage hunts through yet more 15thC mss. From my point of view, they're the children or grandchildren, not the parent of what's in MS Beinecke 408.
Sorry. -
RE: Merpersons
don of tallahassee > 01-02-2016, 10:57 PM
Dear Diane,
You were looking at traditions. I was looking at images. I found a merperson that is posed in the same pose as three of the images in the VMS. This is the only other such image I have been able to find.
Show me how your tradition beats a real image, please. Or why the coincidence of a mermaid shown with one leg lifted and the meamaid tail is shown to be a costume and which is partly removed or loosened is such a likely thing to have occurred. Occam's Razor type logic says otherwise.
I don't give a hoot what tradition says - this is a real image we are talking about, not some tradition, expectation, dream, hope, hoodoo, voodoo or will-o'-the-wisp wish of yours.
Show me an image that is closer to the VMS ones, if you can. Please don't don't preach vaguely about a tradition without some kind of convincing evidence...like a manuscript image.
I found (a European) one. Show me yours, please.
I think the artist of the VMS images looked at images from somewhere for his inspirations for the images in the VMS more than he reflected on some tradition which seems to have no comparable image(s).
Too realistic and rooted in possible evidence, huh? Not enough history and tradition?
Sorry.
Thank you.
Don of Tallahassee. -
RE: Merpersons
MarcoP > 13-02-2016, 03:11 PM
(13-02-2016, 10:34 AM)-Job- Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.The following image is similar to the one in f79v:
You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.
This is an amazing manuscript! It seems that each zodiac sign is associated not only with the usual "labor of the month", but also with a biblical episode:
* Aries: missing
* Taurus (f41r) Jacob wrestles with the angel
* Gemini (f43r) a miracle of Jesus? Gemini are represented as Adam and Eve, with the tree of knowledge
* Cancer is badlly damaged and unreadable
* Leo (f47r): Daniel in the lion's den
* Virgo (f49r): the Virgin Mary
* Libra / Scorpio / Sagittarius missing or badly damaged
* Capricorn (f57v): Adam and Eve
* Aquarius (f59r): the Baptism of Christ
* Pisces (f61r): Jonah and the whale
(PS: this apparently is derived from You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. "De Temporum Ratione", 16)
Wonderful. I had read about biblical interpretations of the zodiac cycle, but I had never seen them so beautifully illustrated!
Thank you, Job! -
RE: Merpersons
Diane > 13-02-2016, 03:35 PM
Don, when I speak of traditions, I mean a lineage for a given form.
So for example, the Irish and Gallo-Celtic tradition for what had originally been the Latin triton-type, turned it into first a lovely two-tailed mer-person, and then into the somewhat breathtaking "Shiela na gig".
You don't find that version in China, and is you did you'd know an Irishman had been that way. That form is from the Irish tradition; the more reticent from Europe, son of Rome, son of Carthage..
That's what I mean by a 'tradition' for a particular type of image.
The sort of references I use don't tend to be online.
We can't add attachments either, can we?
All I can do is offer book references, which I'm happy to provide if they're of any use to you.
One which might be online somewhere is Kircher's China Illustrata, which contains a very fine example of the type from which I think the Voynich figure derives; I've done a fair bit of research to see how it fits into other evidence offered by the manuscript, and thanks to your work on those astrolabes, it all comes together very neatly in the time and sphere of influence of Avignon.
I concluded that - as someone else recently said - the figure was probably inspired by Matsuya, though Coptic images of Jonah are not impossible.
The comparative illustrations are on my old blog, though, because the basic research into this folio was done yonks ago (2010-2011).
Which is not to say it's not worth re-investigating; if you hadn't re-investigated the question of the months' orthography we couldn't have pin-pointed it so exactly. -
RE: Merpersons
don of tallahassee > 14-02-2016, 02:22 PM
Diane
Traditions are great. They help explain a lot of things.
The Avignon papacy does not help explain why the poses of the images in the Voynich Manuscript seem to match the pose of the merperson in the Hunterian Library.
I was not and am not seeking nor showing traditions of mermaids, only an image(s) that looks like the ones in the VMS. As you know, I don't care where the image is from nor if it fits into the grand scheme of traditions.
It exists.
Despite the traditions that you refer to, no other images seem to have yet been found and shared that show the same pose or implied action. Or even a pose or implied action in the same ballpark.
I have to believe the artist of the VMS probably got some of his models for the VMS images from somewhere a little more definite than a tradition. I know you don't like it because it doesn't fit tradition. Others probably don't like it because it originated and now resides too far north to fit their own schemes.
It exists.
Find a better model or likeness if you can and show it to me/us, please, rather than trying to make this one unimportant and unthinkable as a model for the VMS images. If you know of a traditional merperson in a manuscript that looks like it/he/she is getting out of a tail with one leg raised and is more or less like the VMS images in other ways, send it or a link to me in an email, post it here on this site or draw me a picture and snail mail it to me.
Or draw me a picture of the tradition that you think fits so much better as a model.
My model find seems to have one very major deficiency in your world of tradition...
it exists...
but it's not from where you think it should be.
Would it be an okay model if it was from Southern France or stayed there at some point?
Thank you.
Don of Tallahassee -
RE: Merpersons
don of tallahassee > 14-02-2016, 05:02 PM
Sometimes the evidence causes what we think of as traditions to change, not the other way around. You (figuratively) don't get to disregard actual physical evidence because you don't think it fits or don't like it (unless maybe you think Wilfrid used the Hunterian mermaid as a model
).
Or maybe you think it is all just a coincidence of European art tradition and implied action and upraised knee and tail/suit open and partially off, like no other mermaid images found so far?
I thought your 'tradition' was evidence-based. Whazzup?
Thank you.
Don of Tallahassee