Deception by combination
R. Sale > 1 hour ago
One of the reasons that VMs imagery is hard to interpret is that it was intended to be obfuscated and disguised by the combination of two otherwise separate, artistic elements. This sort of idiosyncratic merger creates a visual version of two factor authentication that has withstood a century of modern investigation. This has been due to a failure to recognize the VMs artist's choice of visual terminology, until the presence of adequate internet information and interested investigators, who were able to discover the various historical elements that make up the oxymoronic pairings in the most apparent examples of the VMs.
1. The VMs cosmic structure corresponds best to the historical illustrations of BNF Fr. 565 primarily, (with the 43 undulations) and to Harley 334, which has been placed inside an altered version Shirakatsi's wheel with curved spokes. As far as I know, there is no historical alternative to this structure and the historical possibilities are better than you might think.
2. The VMs mermaid and her companions correspond to the generic mermaid of Harley 334, primarily, and to the mermaid illustrations in Lauber. But here in the VMs, there is no generic mermaid. Instead, it is the changeling, mythical Melusine of Luxembourg, not the flying dragon, reputed ancestress of Bonne of Luxembourg, who was the mother of the Valois line - prominent in the VMs C-14 era.
3. The VMs critter corresponds to a representation of the Golden Fleece (start. 1430), much like the second example where a 'personality' is placed inside a structure. Here there is a very particular relationship with the structure of the Agnus Dei illustration in a particular text (BNF Fr. 13096) and its Burgundian (Valois) provenance.
Each of these combinations either makes sense or fails to make sense depending on the investigators' familiarity with the underlying reality. And for much of modern investigation, that underlying historical reality has been too obscure. The examples also show the VMs artist's intentional use of combined elements to create hybrid images. Combination to create deception. This is not the only form of VMs deception. With pairing to mark a proper path.