NARCISSA'S
TAROT GALLERY
History
of Tarot
Although Tarot is
undoubtedly old, it is not ancient. There have been
several influential claims that Tarot is thousands of
years old, but its origins were around 500 years ago.
Tarot is believed
to have originated in late 14th or early 15th-century
Italy. This is because the images of the Major Arcana
bear some similarity to early engravings of a series of
14th-century Italian poems, "The Triumphs of
Petrach." These poems are about the triumph of love,
chastity, death, fame, time, and eternity. They are moral
allegories about human life and the state of the soul,
and seem to share certain similarities with Tarot. The
Italian card game Tarocco contains 22 cards similar to
the Major Arcana, which are known as triumphs and trumps.
It is also possible that the Major Arcana was devised as
a striking pictorial reminder for spirtually aware but
semiliterate people, in much the same way as stained
glass windows in churches remind congregations of Bible
stories. Although some religious critics have denounced
Tarot as merely "the Devil's Picture Book,"
much of the symbolism is Christian in origin.
Many authorities
have claimed a much older history. In 1781, Antoine Court
de Gebelin published his own Tarot pack and claimed that
the Major Arcana was an ancient Egyptian book containing
secret, magical wisdom.
The Fascination
with all things Egyptian has survived, and many packs
still contain Egyptian imagery. As late as 1944, Aleister
Crowley added further weight to the Egyptian theory by
naming his own Tarot deck the "Book of Thoth."
Types
of Pack
A wide variety of
Tarot Packs are used, but perhaps the best-known and most
popular are two traditional European packs, The Marseille
and The Swiss IJJ, as well as the early 20th-century
Rider-Waite pack which was used in creating this
background and animated icons.
The Rider-Waite
pack was designed by A.E. Waite, and was first published
by Rider & Co. in 1910. Waite was a leading member of
the Order of the Golden Dawn, and his pack embodies some
of the Order's secret teaching. many of the packs of
recent years have followed Waite's symbolism. The
Rider-Waite was the first deck to have pictorial Minor
Arcana cards, which illustrate the meanings assigned to
the cards.
Unusual
Packs
There are
radically different interpretations of Tarot. These
unusual packs tend to be based on mythology, a particular
philosophy, or a special enthusiasm of the designer.
Voyager
Tarot
Voyager Tarot is a vehicle for a
journey into the inner universe of the self, a
symbolic pathway to a full realization of your
abilities. Through this symbolic voyage, you
recognize that you are a universe and part of the
larger universe we live in.
The word
'tarot'is an anagram of tota, meaning 'total',
and rota, 'the revolving wheel.' Voyager Tarot
reestablishes the original purpose of the tarot
implicit in thise words; the whole wheel of life
in the individual. Its symbol system portrays the
human, animal, mineral, vegetable, elemental,
artificial, and extraterrestrial worlds as well
as the domains of mind, body, spirit, heart, and
collective unconsciousness.
|
Cary-Yale
Visconti Tarocchi Deck
Based upon
differences in size and artistic style of the
cards, there appear to be fifteen distinct groups
of 15th century Milanese Visconti and
Visconti-Sforza tarocchi cards. These incomplete
groups survive by as few as a single card to the
most nearly complete pack of seventy-four out of
seventy-eight cards. These cards are sometimes
called Lombard tarocchi packs, because they were
produced in what is now called the province of
Lombardy. All the cards are handpainted on heavy
cardboard.
|
Aleister
Crowley's Thoth Tarot Deck
The Thoth
Tarot deck was designed by Aleister Crowley and
painted by Lady Frieda Harris. The original
intent was to correct and update the classic,
medieval tarot, giving it a more esoteric aspect.
However, the project grew into a restructuring of
the traditional pictorial symbolism of the
ancient wisdom. The three months of work
anticipated extended for five years between 1938
and 1943.
Crowley
poured the entire content of his magical mind
into his tarot and incorporated the latest
discoveries in science, mathmatics, philosophy
and anthropology.
|
Tarot
of the Cat People
Karen
Kuykendall, the creator of the Tarot of the Cat
People, is called by people who know her,
"the Cat Lady." Her art has been
influenced not only by felines, but also by
architecture, anthropology, art history, costume
in history, her travels in Europe, Mexico and the
US, and especially by the location of her present
home, the desert of Arizona. Presently the artist
continues to paint and to create a line of papier
mache jewlery similar to that seen on the figures
in the Tarot of the Cat People. Her favorite
subjects for art are richly costumed people,
fantasy and science fiction, equestrians and of
course cats, modeled on the 10 cats that keep her
company in her desert home while she works.
|
Tarot
Universal Dali
The Wizard,
Salvador Dali, has transformed with his
exceptional art and his marvellous talent the
Book of Thoth into an artistic marvel. Such an
extraordinary artistic creation does not detract,
in any way from the Tarot's close symbolism. On
the contrary, it enhances, with its captivating
beauty, the Tarot's esoteric and plastic meaning,
considered by an authority like Eliphas Levi as
"the masterpiece of human thought, and ,
certainly, one of old times' most beautiful
legacies".
|
The
Hermetic Tarot
Godfrey
Dowson's cards in The Hermetic Tarot reveal a
combination of detail and symbolism that capture
the mood and sense of each pictorial image.
Subtle variations exist in almost every card.
Repeated study of each card often reveals for the
first time a new dimension and scope not seen in
a previous reading. One of the most important
features of Dowson's Hermetic Tarot is his
emphasis on the Golden Dawn astrological
attributions of the cards. Dowson successfully
creates a compelling reconstructed version of the
tarot that undoubtedly will take its place as one
of the most important decks published during the
twentieth century.
|
Tarot
Published
by Running Press
Illustrated
by Julie Paschkis
(Smallest version
of a deck I have ever seen!)
The
Wizard Fortune Telling Cards
Milton
Bradley Co.
This was
published and released by the Milton Bradley game
company years ago as a palour game for adults and
children.
Its not
quite Tarot but I'm sure it was fun for those
that played!
|
|
