I gave a talk at the College of Psychic Studies recently on the art of tarot, which barely scratched the surface of what is a fascinating subject. Who was the first tarot artist? Who came up with the concept of the Major Arcana or triomfi (triumphs) first?

Where did the artist get his inspiration, the one who first produced the Triumphs (the Majors)? The medieval mind had no problems thinking symbolically. Mystery plays were performed regularly, immense tableaux with music and floats. The plays could last for days and usually featured biblical scenes or morality plays. They were staged by various guilds and the morality plays, particularly, would have featured allegorical, moral characters; like the Emperor, the Chariot, Justice, Death and so on. Perhaps one of the artists involved with these mystery plays have produced a series of symbolic images to trump the suits, in the new card game of tarocchi being played. Perhaps it took shape in a conversation in a tavern one evening. Or, perhaps, one of the city-state princes had been brought a pack from the Moorish lands and commissioned his court artist to add to it. However it happened, the triomfi appeared, beautiful, exotic, and powerful, and took the population by storm.

In the records of Charles VI’s treasurer in 1392, we find this intriguing reference: ‘paid to Jacquemin Gringonneur, painter, for three packs of cards, gilded, coloured, and ornamented with various designs, for the amusement of our lord the king, 56 sols of Paris’. Were these a beautiful set of what we now think of as the Minor Arcana, painted for Charles VI, or did they include the Majors? Unfortunately – as usual with the tarot, we’ll never know unless someone invents a time machine, as none of the cards survive. If these were the triomfi, was Gringonneur the inventor of the Major Arcana?

Scholars now consider that playing cards were brought into Europe, probably through Venice, from the Mamluk empire. There was a long tradition of card-making in Egypt (cards have been found dating to the late 12th century), but this does not mean that the images of the tarot Majors originated in the Egyptian Book of the Death (one of the myths of tarot created by Court de Gébelin, a French Mason and occultist, in the late 18th century). However, in medieval times there were direct trade links with Muslim countries, and an inventory of the Duke of Orleans’ possessions (1408) details a ‘Saracen card deck’. Juzzo da Coveluzzo specifically refers to the cards as a ‘Saracen invention’.

The images of the Major Arcana, which are thought to have appeared separately and a little later than the Minors, clearly derive from the European medieval mind-set, although with a few interesting touches. The Papess, for example, was based on the story of a female pope (Pope Joan). The Hanged Man is now seen as a pagan reference to Odin gaining wisdom by hanging himself on the world tree, or gods such as Attis, sacrificed each year to ensure fertility. However, in medieval times thieves or traitors were sometimes hung upside down, and one or two decks show money falling from his pockets. Here we see the Hanged Man grasping two money-bags which are presumably his ill-gotten gains. An alternative suggestion is that this represents Judas.

The Wheel of Fortune was a favourite medieval reference. You could be a king one day and a pauper the next: medieval people tended to have a healthy respect for fate, given that they were often at the receiving end of power-hungry princes. Internecine wars were frequent, and the princes might ride high for a while and then lose their war with a consequent loss of prosperity for the population.

Unfortunately these tiny images cannot display the artistry of the earliest extant cards, which were produced mainly for the Visconti family. There are 239 cards in total produced for the Viscontis, which may comprise eleven distinct groups of cards. The Cary-Yale Visconti tarot, from which I’ve drawn these images, is a particularly fine set which unusually has four extra female knights.

The first decks could have been roughly drawn on card, copied from the ‘Saracen’ examples. Later when the aristocracy discovered them, they would have been commissioned from artists like Bembo or Gringonneur. These first tarot artists were probably illuminators, rather than mural artists; used to working with miniatures and gilding. Most of them were probably Italian, and must have been craftsmen (or women) rather than monks. The early decks were used for gaming (which is presumably why the church objected, which it did, strenuously and regularly – and, ironically, these objections are the only evidence we have regarding the first appearance of the tarot).

(to be continued)

The Art of Tarot is a post from: Tarot Card Meanings - How They Can Help You Today

The Art of Tarot is a post from: Tarot Card Meanings - How They Can Help You Today

Dai Léon’s Origins of the Tarot is a massive tome, the subtitle of which is ‘Cosmic Ordering and Principles of Immortality’. It is an academic book, and the reader may occasionally find the text confusing. Léon seems to wind round and round looking at the same issues from a different perspective each time. It is an engrossing read, as the Sufi/Neoplatonic influences behind the Tarot have not been so explicitly detailed previously and, as other reviewers have pointed out, it’s well overdue. In fact, once you’ve finished the book you may find you want to return to page 1 and begin again – and ‘know the place for the first time’. 

My biggest gripe with this book is the lack of paginated references. There is an index but none of it is related to a specific page, allowing Léon to make statements such as ‘Once rendered as Image-Exemplars and called Triumphant, those Attributes heralded a spiritual renaissance passed from Eastern Christian and Sufi societies to European spiritual orders. With that, a fourth-wave trans-rational, vision-logic age emerged. It advanced through its youth in centuries following and continues to mature in the twenty-first century.’ My mind immediately teemed with questions: Are we talking about the 15th century or before? Where can we find more about this trans-rational renaissance which passed from the Eastern Church to the West? How did it keep alive between the 15th Century and the 21st? etc. I’d prefer some specific sources – for example when he mentions the Caucasian mummies in the far west of China, which is one of my particular interests.

Having said that, it is a refreshing book, not least because Leon does not follow any of our previous accepted truths. In this way he forces us to step into the position of the Hanged Man, to question everything we’ve been told about the origins of the cards so many of us use day-in, day-out – without actually knowing much about them at all.

ISBN 978-1-58394-261-1

Origins of the Tarot – Dai Léon (Frog Books) is a post from: Tarot Card Meanings - How They Can Help You Today

Origins of the Tarot – Dai Léon (Frog Books) is a post from: Tarot Card Meanings - How They Can Help You Today

I have acquired a new tarot deck. Up to now I have only used The Intuitive Tarot, basically because I know it so well and it reads so easily for me, but having recently become fascinated by all things medieval (re-enactment, demonstrating medieval painting techniques, etc), I had a look at some medieval tarot – for example:

The Giotto Tarot - a stylised deck based on Giotto’s work.
The Medieval Scapini deck
The Golden Tarot of the Renaissance. A very attractive deck with gold leaf background.
The Mantegna tarot. Ostensibly based on the Sola Busca tarot, which contains the earliest illustrated minors (and utilised by Pamela Coleman Smith in the Rider-Waite tarot), this is an interesting pack but not strictly a tarot deck as it only has 50 cards.
The Old English Tarot
The Renaissance Tarot
The Golden Tarot, by Kat Black

and so on…. It was Kat Black’s Golden Tarot that finally captured me. This deck was obviously a labour of love, digitally collaged from medieval paintings and using the Rider Waite system. It’s been beautifully produced by US Games Inc. with gilt edges and a well-crafted booklet. Some people don’t like the fact that they recognise bits of paintings, separated from their original artwork. However, for me this is one of the attractions as I can use the booklet to source the different paintings. Most importantly, though, I can read with it. As soon as I started reading from it, the cards began to tell a coherent story.

Today, for example, I drew three cards for the presenting issue of the week, and got Queen of Swords and the High Priestess, both reversed. It was a clear warning not to start messing with someone else’s life (a temptation over the weekend!), as it would be a) unwise and b) a deviation of my own integrity as the High Priestess. So I’ll take the cards’ advice and stay upright …

Kat Black’s Golden Tarot – More like a Blog! is a post from: Tarot Card Meanings - How They Can Help You Today

Kat Black’s Golden Tarot – More like a Blog! is a post from: Tarot Card Meanings - How They Can Help You Today