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Thread for random remarks and questions about Voynich images
- Thread for random remarks and questions about Voynich images
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RE: Thread for random remarks and questions about Voynich images
Doireannjane > 24-01-2026, 06:45 PM
(24-01-2026, 05:11 PM)Koen G Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.
(24-01-2026, 04:51 PM)Jorge_Stolfi Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Which raises the question: if the Scribe was copying the scene from a book -- like your citation above, or any of the other sources that have been posted -- how could he not understand that the "loop of little circles" was a rosary?
I used to tell people that the drawings in the MS actually weren't all that bad, which is now something I wish I'd never said. In many parts, the drawings are really bad, and it's clear that the artist misinterpreted sources. I'm currently making (read: struggling with) a video about the animals in the MS, and let's say I've gotten a renewed appreciation for how dire the situation is.
I'll add though, that artists misinterpreting exemplars is not exceptional at all, and it doesn't say much about their intellectual capacities. More often than not, these changes are incremental: at one point in the transmission, an artists draws an ambiguous object, and the next time it is copied, the thing has changed.
Given the fact that the Voynich manuscript likely wasn't produced as a high-end product, there's also a good chance that its source material (which it definitely had) was not of the highest accuracy.
“Really bad”? Or maybe just not for you. Maybe you were not the intended reader? Texture and time collapse (bud, growth pattern, flower, stamen, stem pattern all depicted in one) seemed to be particularly important, perhaps to accompany those with impaired vision and/or to encompass other plants in the same family across the coast (as I argue on my free Substack) Maybe what you consider “really bad” is actually quite exceptional identification wise. Just a thought. -
RE: Thread for random remarks and questions about Voynich images
ReneZ > 24-01-2026, 11:39 PM
(24-01-2026, 05:11 PM)Koen G Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.I used to tell people that the drawings in the MS actually weren't all that bad, which is now something I wish I'd never said. In many parts, the drawings are really bad
In my opinion, some drawings are not bad at all. This mainly applies to a large part of the herb drawings.
In other places they are, indeed, terrible.
Now 'bad' is a subjective term. When I say 'not bad', I do not mean that the herb drawings look like the actual plants. I mean that the drawings tend to include realistic details and were partially drawn with care, evidently.
As for the human figures, these are among the worst of the worst in medieval examples.
In my opinion of course. -
RE: Thread for random remarks and questions about Voynich images
Bluetoes101 > 24-01-2026, 11:47 PM
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RE: Thread for random remarks and questions about Voynich images
Doireannjane > 25-01-2026, 12:40 AM
Fair, their little faces always remind me of the little guys in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight lol lil bit wonky -
RE: Thread for random remarks and questions about Voynich images
R. Sale > 25-01-2026, 01:12 AM
Relatively bad on a plus / minus scale of aesthetically pleasing, sure. But how about structural accuracy? Pretty good there when it needs to be. -
RE: Thread for random remarks and questions about Voynich images
Koen G > 25-01-2026, 09:27 AM
Rene: that's exactly what I mean. Some of the plant drawings are quite intricate and elegant. The caveat here is that we don't know what they are based on, so we have less of a reference point. Who knows how many oddities in the plants are based on misrepresentation and misunderstanding of source material?
Everything involving human and animal anatomy is potentially awful. But also perspective. The lion's eyes, mouth and ears are drawn top down, profile and three quarters respectively.
The drawings being technically bad of course doesn't imply a lack of appreciation. I love every single one of them :) -
RE: Thread for random remarks and questions about Voynich images
Rafal > 25-01-2026, 12:39 PM
I would agree. Plants are decent, people and animals are very bad.
Actually I wonder if they are made by the same person.
Have you noticed there there isn't any single human picture in the plants section? So we actually cannot claim that the plant artist draws people badly because we don't have a sample of his work.
The closest thing are some human faces in the roots in the page You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. which I would say are quite standard, compared to similar faces in other manuscripts.
We also have "little dragon" in the page f25v. For me it is simple but actually quite cute. And Jorge will come and tell you that it was added later
So again it is not enough to judge the skill of the plant artist.
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RE: Thread for random remarks and questions about Voynich images
ReneZ > 25-01-2026, 12:41 PM
I have drawn plants pretty well (if I may say so...) but cannot claim the same for human figures.
It's a different skill. -
RE: Thread for random remarks and questions about Voynich images
Rafal > 25-01-2026, 01:31 PM
Quote:It's a different skill.
I agree.
And people are much more demanding when it comes to human drawing than in case of anything else.
We are trained to recognise human faces, age, ethnicity, diseases and even personality traits based on subtle clues in the human appearance.
So we immediately see any little imperfection of human drawings while in other cases we would be more forgiving.
Still if we accept several scribes in VM then why not several artists?
Proving it would be another thing though.