R. Sale > 04-01-2018, 01:23 AM
The matter of authentic replication seems at first to be a purely visual situation. It is simply a determination that the item under consideration, the one that looks most like the original item, is the most authentic replication. And conversely it is often perceived that the lack of visual similarity carries with it a reduction, even the elimination of authenticity. This position can even become dogmatic.
This is where the creator of the VMs demonstrates a masterful talent with medieval information and the ability to improvise, to cant, and to compose. The composition is a puzzle. Improvisation occurs through visual trickery and optical illusion. Reality has been hidden behind a façade of fictitious existence. And in seeing only the façade, the reader is deceived and diverted from any investigation of how the VMs really does show connections to historical reality.
The talent of the VMs creator is not seen in the replication of visual similarity. That talent is shown in the ability to create an illustration in which a strong visual divergence can still exhibit a significant ideological similarity with the original, historical images. And the best example is the comparison of VMs You are not allowed to view links.
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Login to view. with the Oresme cosmos (BNF fr 565). And that comparison suggests a series of propositions.
·[font=Times New Roman] [/font]The Oresme model of the cosmos is not common in medieval sources.
·[font=Times New Roman] [/font]The Oresme cosmic structure is relatively uncomplicated. It consists of three parts: an elemental (inverted) T-O representation of the earth, a starry field, and a cloud band.
·[font=Times New Roman] [/font]The VMs cosmos presents a similar, uncomplicated structure in that it is also constructed without the typical, planetary orbits.
·[font=Times New Roman] [/font]The parts represented in the VMs correspond to the parts used in Oresme in an interesting way. They are clearly different in their appearance, but there is reason to interpret that appearance in a very similar manner.
·[font=Times New Roman] [/font]Thus the comparison shows a clear structural analogy and a strong ideological similarity in the details of the corresponding parts – with the option of enhanced visual similarity through the combination with the Central Rosette cloud band.
·[font=Times New Roman] [/font]The combined use of visual discrepancy, often created though artistic ambiguity, and ideological similarity is the method by which the VMs creator has disguised the hidden historical content in this mysterious text. The use of this methodology is intentional. Deception is intentional.
·[font=Times New Roman] [/font]The general failure of modern investigation is the reliance on visual similarity, while at the same time recognition is blocked by the inability to recognize the necessary sources and their corresponding ideological details.