Taking things out of context is the norm for Tarot cultists. That is part of their routine failure/refusal to recognize/admit the obvious, and that is what opens the gates for endless fantasy. If you ignore/dismiss the obvious meaning of something, then the field is wide open for competition between whatever crappy ideas may arise via free association. It's a fortune-teller's crippled substitute for iconography. For example, the magician was a stock figure in the Children of the Planets depictions of Luna's influence, and yet even today, after this has been a common subject on Tarot forums for many years, some prominent cultists are unable to recognize (or unwilling to admit) this obvious fact. They don't have an alternative interpretation, they just don't want to admit the obvious.
Of course, such blindness/disingenuousness has a long and hallowed history in Tarot. For example, figures rising from the ground while another figure with wings blows a trumpet from above constitute a motif that is repeated, sometimes beautifully and sometimes crudely, over many centuries of Christian art. Most normal people who have some familiarity with Western culture can correctly recognize that motif in an instant, and the vast majority are honest enough that they would not even imagine lying about it. However, the most influential writers on Tarot stated that the motif was related to Genesis and Creation rather than Revelation and the Last Resurrection. That kind of imbecilic play can be fun, much more so than simply recognizing the obvious, as long as one realizes that it's complete drivel. The problem with that kind of fun is that it leads only to more of the same. It is never a stepping stone to good ideas, ideas that can be built on by subsequent generations, which is why Tarot cultists still have no understanding of the object of their obsession after 230 years.
Ignoring such cultural context is only one contextual problem. Another is ignoring the sequential context in Tarot's trump cycle, and a third is ignoring the context of similar subjects in other Tarot decks. All these stupidities pale in comparison, however, with the combination of ignoring all genuine context for a given card, and even ignoring most of the card in question, while fantasizing about a single element of that card taken out of the immediate context of the image itself!
The current "Straw Hat Debate" thread on the Aeclectic "Historical Research" forum is a case in point. It has been termed an enjoyable thread and praised for some alleged detective work. However, as usual, none of that investigation appears to have shed even the faintest new light on Tarot. Grudgingly, some of the posters are finally beginning to admit the obvious -- if only as a possibility. The sad fact is that none of their "findings" in the week of "detective work" pointed in that direction, and the obvious conclusion still seems to be painful for them to admit.
This is, however, a good opportunity to post a couple wallpaper pages I cobbled together a while back. They include a number of Tarot cards and all of the Children of Luna images I've found, as well as other magician images, most of them pre-Gébelin. Some are quite well known (like the showman Fawkes) or from well-known works (like Wolgemut's Circe from the Nuremberg Chronicle). Others are more obscure, but all share an unmistakable family resemblance to anyone not willfully obtuse or blind to the evident continuity.
1. Sequential Context of the Trump Cycle (Upper-Right)2. Parallel Context of Different Tarot Decks (Lower-Left) 3. Cultural Context of Cognate Depictions (Diagonally) (Right-click and open in new tab.) |
1. Sequential Context of the Trump Cycle (Upper-Right)2. Parallel Context of Different Tarot Decks (Lower-Left) 3. Cultural Context of Cognate Depictions (Diagonally) (Right-click and open in new tab.) |
August 8, 2010 postscript:
It seems worthwhile to post an isolated example of one of the Children of Luna compositions, as they include the most common cognate images for Tarot's Magician. Specifically, interest has been expressed in the Baccio Baldini image, which is online at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts. So I'll reproduce it here, along with a seldom mentioned 16th-century Children of Luna tapestry (based on the Barthel Beham print) from the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
While we're adding pics, two more magician drawings that are not commonly mentioned seem worth posting. The first appears to be a preliminary sketch for Bosch's Conjurer, although it is now listed as being by a follower of Bosch. It is usually called The Juggler, and is online at the Louvre. The second is an 18th-century print borrowed from the excellent Marinni's Journal site, a page on monkeys.
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