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Are we taking the pictures too literally?

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• Are we taking the pictures too literally?

• RE: Are we taking the pictures too literally?

  Linda > 15-08-2022, 06:25 AM

  I caught a glimpse if f95r1 today and now that i have grown it, it think i recognize Cerinthe.
  
  But it is not literal unless you read out the characteristics. 
  
  
  
  
  
  Clasping, aternating leaves that go all the way to the flowers (the ones not painted are kind of ghosts and are not really there) but there is actally part of the leaf directly across the stem, as it clasps well beyond the stem. 
  The ends of the flowers alternate pinkish red and white (one of the ones i have are exactly that, it has two flowers, one is almost white, the other is pink and white, my other one from different seed, the first one is pink with white at the ends, the older one is blue with pink and white.).
  The drooping flower bracts are blue, or can be white, or green (ie no colour influence, white can be also depicting clear, or absence of colour) . In fact younger ones will be more likely to be without blue than older ones. (note the three stems, one is all blue flowers, it will be the oldest. The one with two white ones is so young the heads haven't dropped yet.)
  
  The flowers droop from long slender stalks with clasping alternating leaves culminating in bracts that turn colour as they age.

• RE: Are we taking the pictures too literally?

  Scarecrow > 16-08-2022, 06:56 AM

  (08-08-2021, 06:23 PM)Anton Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.

  (08-08-2021, 05:49 PM)ekorre Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.It made me think that maybe the plants are just so badly depicted that people can't recognize them.

  
  There's been extensive discussion in this forum about plants being depicted mnemonically

  
  I'd say that the plants VMS are mostly a combination of different plant parts, ie. roots are from one, flowers from other etc., combined in a way that the intended audience would recognize and understand. Maybe they are parts (root, stem, flower..) that fall under the same topic, wound healing, stomach ache healing that the relative page is about. There is't necessary any connection in text to the names of the plants, as they are used just to illustrate the plants used on the topic, and the intended audience or recognizes them easily or has a reference material to find them somewhere else.

• RE: Are we taking the pictures too literally?

  Koen G > 16-08-2022, 08:34 AM

  People have claimed this before, in an attempt to come to terms with those plants that are impossible to identify. My suspicion is that this is wishful thinking, and there is no decent proof or even small indication that this is the case. 
  
  On the other hand, there are counter examples. The water lilly combines flower, leaf and root of the same plant. The same goes for the castor oil plant, the viola and so forth.
  
  If we zoom in on the viola, we also see that "combining parts of different plants" is a poor explanation for what the VM actually does. The viola is expertly rendered, it is almost too realistic for a manuscript like the VM. Yet what does it do? It flips all three flowers upside down. 
  
  While there is no evidence for the "thematic combination" hypothesis, there is plenty of evidence for something else: the VM manipulates plant parts to suit it's needs. Think of the many strange roots. Those aren't brought in from other plants - no plant has roots that look like a feline, or two mammals facing each other, or an eagle, or two human faces. Certain flowers and leaves have been manipulated beyond reasonable natural possibilities as well.
  
  I believe it is very important to recognize that the VM makes intentional changes to the way it would naturally draw plants. We know it can draw them naturally, but it chooses not to do so in many cases. These changes generally take the image further away from a naturalistic representation of a plant.
  
  To put it another way, if the VM simply recombined parts of existing plants, it would still not look as bizarre as it does. Even if it combines parts of different plants in some occasions (maybe it does, I don't know), it seems clear to me that one or more other transformative principles have a greater impact on our inability to identify the plants.

• RE: Are we taking the pictures too literally?

  MarcoP > 16-08-2022, 11:00 AM

  (16-08-2022, 08:34 AM)Koen G Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.To put it another way, if the VM simply recombined parts of existing plants, it would still not look as bizarre as it does. Even if it combines parts of different plants in some occasions (maybe it does, I don't know), it seems clear to me that one or more other transformative principles have a greater impact on our inability to identify the plants.

  
  And all this does not apply to the Voynich manuscript only, but to most medieval herbals (in different degrees). Trinity O.2.48 is a case in which both mixing parts of different plants and adding non-vegetal elements is taken as far as in the VMS.

• RE: Are we taking the pictures too literally?

  Scarecrow > 16-08-2022, 11:31 AM

  You do have good and agreeable points. My intention was to bring out another point of view, and not to debate wheter or not the plants are identifiable or real.
  
  

  Quote:Think of the many strange roots. Those aren't brought in from other plants - no plant has roots that look like a feline, or two mammals facing each other, or an eagle, or two human faces. Certain flowers and leaves have been manipulated beyond reasonable natural possibilities as well.

  Yes, I've been thinking those strange roots and maybe they could be some kind of mnemonics to the audience indicate of which root we are talking about here, in case of possibile ambiguity, i.e., "This is the root we call the feline root","this is the bad face root" and so on. In that way they could have omitted the proper names of the plants and plant parts from the text, which would further help to conceal and protect the MS. The topic idea sound me more realistic than just single plant page, and I may be wrong, but there is not much of evidence of proper names in the VMS, a lot of unique words though vs just once words. Would the rather rigid glyph order allow for proper names?
  
  

  Quote:To put it another way, if the VM simply recombined parts of existing plants, it would still not look as bizarre as it does. Even if it combines parts of different plants in some occasions (maybe it does, I don't know), it seems clear to me that one or more other transformative principles have a greater impact on our inability to identify the plants.

  No, I don't think VM is simply of anything. I think some, not all, the plants could be recombinations. In some cases there might not be but one plant for one topic so no recombination needed. But I do agree that there could be something else or more to it, concealment and transformation. On the other hand, why they would have left the plants as clues..
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