VMs: Re: balanced details in the plants (was: AW: Introduction, speculations, & questions)

["DANA SCOTT" <dscott520@xxxxxxx>]

Hello Sebastian,

Your intimations are valid; however, I would caution that a clever scribe 
might perhaps have been satisfied to simply describe certain observations 
directly through the illustrations without having to repeat a connection in 
the text, and therefore the drawings would serve as an adequate mnemonic in 
and of themselves fulfilling the artist's purposes.

Regards,
Dana Scott


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Sebastian Unterreitmeier" <sebastian@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: <vms-list@xxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Wednesday, July 30, 2003 2:18 AM
Subject: VMs: balanced details in the plants (was: AW: Introduction, 
speculations, & questions)


> hi baraba,
>
> i will pick up a topic from your posting, because i found
> something (maybe im number 200 finding this *g*) interesting
> in the drawings. i hope it is not something that is well known and
> bothers you all. :/
>
> >saw her journals. She was no artist, so when she drew medicinal plants
> >she exaggerated the features by which they'd be identified and was very
> >careful about colours.
>
> the drawings of the herbals may look sloppy in some way, but i think
> that the drawer gave special attention to important details.
> ive counted the details in the drawings(i started from the beginning
> and now im on page f23r) and a lot of the details are well balanced,
> in the meaning of "all similar parts have the same amount of edges
> or other details like dots in it":
> some short examples for balanced details:
> -on f10v all blossoms have 6 blossomleaves and there are 2 tubers
>  before the blossom
> -on f18v all leaves have the same count of edges (6)
> -on f14v both roots have 3 smaller roots. the plant have 3 blossoms
>  and there a 3 dots in each blossom
>
> ok, one could say: it was a pedantic drawer that gave much attention
> to such details because of his own mentality, but the details are
> not balanced in other parts of the drawings and they seem well placed
> where they belong. that leads me to the following expectations:
> -the drawer gave special attention to some details that appear nearly
>  always in this way on the plant. (like a leaf have always 6 edges)
> -he also gave attention to details that dont appear regulary and
>  so he draw this details with variations or in a "sloppy" style.
>  for example: f6v, the small leaves on the blossoms of the
>  "sunflower" or details and strucure in the roots of other plants
> -that leads me to the keen expectation: the drawer painted real
>  plants and that finally could imply that
> -one can found informations about this regularitys in the text on the
>  page where the plant is drawn (premise: the text describes the plant)
>  for example: somewhere in the text of f10v the blossom is described
>  like i did it above. this finally can help decipher the ms, because
>  the numbers 6 and 2 will also occure on f18v and on other pages.
>  maybe we can find a symbol or word on the pages that only appears
>  on pages where the number 6 is the number of a detail in a plant
>  and than we have maybe deciphered the word that says "6" and
>  we can go on with other words...
>
> sorry if i bothered you, because i maybe only found details that
> are well known?! :/
>
> kind regards,
> sebastian
> -- 
> www.sinandsoul.com
>
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