RE: What is unique or rare about the VM Zodiac signs?
-JKP- > 21-09-2018, 07:33 AM
It can be extremely challenging to figure out which parts are coincidentally similar.
I've done numerous combination-searches of the zodiacs (and need to do many more), trying to flush out which details were individualized by the artist and which were copied. Of course, there is no perfect formula for this, some illustrators individualize more than others, but coming at it from different perspectives might add a few jigsaw pieces.
What I learned is that some things show up everywhere (like leg-tail tongue lions). There are zillions of them, if you count non-zodiac drawings, so using these details as search functions when analyzing the zodiacs is very speculative.
I also learned that some things are quite rare, like laces on Gemini boots.
Hooves that look like paws are uncommon, and back legs with the joints facing the wrong direction (as in the VMS) are very uncommon. I have almost no examples, after years of searching. Even illustrators with very limited skills seem to get this detail right (or, at least, more right than the VMS). It's a distinctive feature of the VMS drawing style, but was it learned from copying or is it a quirk of perception?
In general, the VMS illustrator has difficulty visualizing objects in three dimensions but that wouldn't account for everything, like the rounded hooves and weird noses (at least one, and possibly two of which may have been drawn by someone else). It also doesn't explain why so many of the critters and figures have smiley faces in places where one might expect another expression. There are exceptions, they're not all smiling, but the RELATIVE lack of conflict, of weapons, of grimacing faces is noticeable compared to many manuscripts on the same subjects.
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I still don't have a strong feeling about where the illustrator harvested the subject matter, I still suspect it was from a variety of sources, but the THEMES in the VMS (by this I mean the motifs within each subject area) are frequently found in northern Italy (especially Lombardy and close to the Veneto), Bavaria/Tyrol/Bohemia, Schwabia/Alsatia, Paris, and northeastern France.
When I find English manuscripts with commonalities with the VMS, there is often some doubt about its origin (was it created in England? or in France/Normandy/Flanders?) OR, it is an early exemplar, brought home in the crusades, that filtered out into the continent rather than the other way around So there aren't as many pushpins in my imaginary map of England as other places. and there aren't as many in Spain either, except in the areas close to Provençe, and even this is sparse compared to the other locations.
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But (and there is always a "but" with the VMS) this might not even mean anything because the VMS is not entirely the same as any of them, which means it could still be slightly off-the-grid origin (Poland? Silesia? Hungary? Dalmatia? Macedonia? Finland? northern Spain/southern France?). Georgia seems less likely (I've looked hard for connections to Georgia, Turkey, Greece, and Iran without hitting a bingo). Greco-Roman themes filtered naturally into medieval art and literature, so it's difficult to know if there are any direct links. A number of Greek and Georgian scholars studied in Germany, Lombardy, and Paris, so I can't rule them out entirely.
The VMS doesn't feel culturally homogenous to me. If it turns out it is, I will be surprised. My gut feeling is that whoever masterminded it may have come from one place and studied (or created the VMS) in another.