[Zodiac Rating] VIRGO

[Rafal]

I am coming from this thread You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.
and would like to raise some issue.

Let's call Voynich Virgo "lady in blue". I guess most people agree that she (the same type of character) also appears in Voynich Gemini.

I have thought about it a little bit and came to conclusion that "lady in blue" is actually a really common motif.

She appears not only in Zodiacs but also in other scenes involving virgins or young, unmarried girls (which is basically the same) like unicorn hunting:



I had some "aha moment" and realized this depiction is most probably connected to Holy Mary. The colour of Virgin Mary is blue, see for example here: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.
This symbolism is connected to royalty as it was born in the Byzantine empire and blue was there "the color of an empress". It is also a color of sky/heaven and Mary is the Queen of Heaven (Regina Caeli) so we have a double connection there. Also in expensive manuscripts Mary was painted with ultramarine which was a very expensive paint and therefore a symbol of "prestige".

Through Virgin Mary blue color became connected to other virgins and became a symbol of purity and innocence. "Lady in blue" is just an archetypical virgin.

So maybe Voynich Virgo should be compared not only to Zodiacs but also some other, chosen works where similarity is high (like the white collar in pictures below)?

And I would say we have the best matches outside Zodiac:
   
   

Edit: And this second picture with strangely short guy is quite similar to Voynich Gemini:


I got it here: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.

[eggyk]

I had some "aha moment" and realized this depiction is most probably connected to Holy Mary. The colour of Virgin Mary is blue, see for example here: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.
This symbolism is connected to royalty as it was born in the Byzantine empire and blue was there "the color of an empress". It is also a color of sky/heaven and Mary is the Queen of Heaven (Regina Caeli) so we have a double connection there. Also in expensive manuscripts Mary was painted with ultramarine which was a very expensive paint and therefore a symbol of "prestige".

Through Virgin Mary blue color became connected to other virgins and became a symbol of purity and innocence. "Lady in blue" is just an archetypical virgin.

So maybe Voynich Virgo should be compared not only to Zodiacs but also some other, chosen works where similarity is high (like the white collar in pictures below)?

Yes, absolutely! This is something I noticed when looking at all of the french books of hours in particular. Basically all of them are chock full of the virgin mary in flowing blue dresses. Mix this with extremely common poses (like holding both hands forward like in your second example) and you end up with hundreds of similar examples. 

I picked a 15thC book of hours from the list (completely randomly) and there are reasonably close examples:
       

There are also really commonly "virgo like" women depicted constantly, which out of context could absolutely be a virgo depiction:
           

Not to mention the staggering amount of libra entries that are effectively held by virgo:
       

When and where this "lady in blue" motif was chosen to depict the zodiac sign virgo is one of the most important points we're trying to work out. So all in all, if the image isn't coming from a context related to the zodiac, it would have to be extremely similar (or include multiple rare qualities, such as jagged sleeves, a star, a voynichy blue hat) to justify being added and rated as an entry on the spreadsheet. Otherwise we're talking about rating 1000s of extra examples.  

That's one of the biggest issues with rating virgo to be honest: at the end of the day it's just a woman wearing a dress, in a relatively common dress colour, in a relatively common body position. But what you're saying is also completely correct, namely that the inspiration could definitely have been drawn from those non-zodiac sources.

Edit: That second image you added is from You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.

[Koen G]

There's an unavoidable association between Virgo constellation and Virgo Maria (Latin for Virgin Mary). Blue had long been established as the color of "the Virgin", so it seems logical that other Virgos follow suit.

About the Alsatian stock "young man - young woman" pair, I had a brief obsession with those many years ago: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.

There must be more MSS available now, so it's certainly worth a revisit. Collar lines was one of the things I did not pay attention to. But of course, your results will vary depending on which part of the fashion you find important or not. 

About the inspiration being from non-zodiac sources: it's possible, of course, but this wouldn't be my first guess. Why scrape together a Zodiac series when examples are all around? But I agree there must have been cross-pollination between Zodiac art and non-Zodiac art, and both are subject to the same whims of fashion, both in clothing and art style.

[Rafal]

So all in all, if the image isn't coming from a context related to the zodiac, it would have to be extremely similar

I agree. It's rational to consider all cases from Zodiac and only very similar cases from the other imagery.

[Rafal]

Edit: That second image you added is from You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.

Indeed. And here is another picture from that, this time she is wearing Voynich style cap, but with big feathers and the white collar is gone. It's hard to find an exact 100% match.

   

[eggyk]

About the inspiration being from non-zodiac sources: it's possible, of course, but this wouldn't be my first guess. Why scrape together a Zodiac series when examples are all around? But I agree there must have been cross-pollination between Zodiac art and non-Zodiac art, and both are subject to the same whims of fashion, both in clothing and art style.

I think a process of:

"What is the virgo sign?" -> "Virgo is a virgin/youthful woman" -> "I'll draw a virgin/youthful woman" -> "Copy a typical virgin/youthful woman based on works I've seen (including potential zodiac sequences)"

has some potential credit for virgo and gemini in particular. I think many of the examples found probably fit into that category to some degree.

Signs based on animals may also apply similarly in some cases, as their description boils down to "is this animal". Signs like sagittarius and capricorn get muddier. The fact that they both have multiple wildly different traditions -yet each of those traditions also has many similar copies across centuries- probably suggests that there was a mix of "draw this description" vs "copy this example" going on.

[eggyk]

You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.
1401-1500 (You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.)
France, Paris

   

Unfortunately the colours are wrong, but the hat shape is really good and the hairstyle is basically perfect. I made her clothes blue for fun to see how close it would feel  

       

[Koen G]

That is a very good one! If she were a decade or two earlier, the dress probably would have matched even better.

Note: I've learned from experience that people will repost photoshopped images as originals without context. When you have the chance, it's always best to add some text like "colors altered", "mirrored" or whatever.

[R. Sale]

There are several other representations of dresses with white collars in the Hagenau version of Parzival.
Here's another. [UBH Cod. Pal. germ. 432]

You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.

In the selection of Hagenau manuscripts available there, it seems to be the only text that shows this fashion element. The dating (1443-1446) may seem a bit late for some. Perhaps there are earlier examples?

You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.

The artistry in Parzival seems to have its own style.

[Koen G]

That reminds me of how much the Alsatian workshops (also the one pre-Lauber, IIRC) love huge feathers on hats - something that certainly distinguishes them from the VM.