mjhurst wrote:Hi, Robert,

Hi Michael!

mjhurst wrote:Given the near-universal practice of looking at each card in isolation, trying to find the best available pictorial cognate elsewhere, and then imposing that meaning on the Tarot card, your analysis makes some sense, I guess. It was a conventional Christ image and it became corrupted, because no one knew what Christ was supposed to look like. They just gave him tits, 'cause they didn't know no better.

LOL. Did I say that? I thought I said that I didn't think it was ever intended to be an androgynous figure, and that there was an attempt to secularise the image. Bad Robert.

mjhurst wrote:I have to agree that many details of many decks do appear to be best explained by simple sloppiness and ignorance. For example, only a die-hard occultist would insist on inventing an intended meaning for something like the bull's lost halo -- that is just silly.

Right, having halos on three of the evangelists would be silly!

mjhurst wrote:But still... giving our dear fluffy Lord and Savior titties? WHY?!

To turn it from being a depiction of Christ into a secular image. I thought I said that already?

mjhurst wrote:That's not an everyday kind of mistake.

Nope. Maybe it was intentional?

mjhurst wrote:You seem to assume that the original version was simple and conventional, which is fine, but it seems implausible that a simple and conventional Christ in Majesty figure would be ruined so perversely.

And yet, that is what it looks like. Maybe that's why Conver felt the need to completely redraw the deck?

robert wrote:I have a harder time believing it would happen in reverse. If not Christ, then it needs to be a figure that would be accompanied by the four evangelists and have a halo, I'm open to suggestions, but Christ seems the most likely subject.

For which deck? You seem to arguing that these different decks are all depicting the same subject, which gets us back to the "Christ with tits" problem.

Well, you know me, never basing it on just one image, always looking at it as a group and comparing and contrasting.

mjhurst wrote: ---
THE QUESTION OF AMBIGUITY
...

Really? That's Jesus? I suppose it wouldn't surprise you to know I never thought of it that way, but maybe it would surprise you if I told you I'm not convinced? A tonsured Jesus with his butt to us and a naked mother Mary praying at his grave? Hmmm. But no Jesus with boobs, eh?

mjhurst wrote: ---
LECTIO DIFFICILIOR POTIOR
...

And yet, I still remain unconvinced.

I still think it terribly unlikely that it went from the Conver image to the Vieville image. But take heart, no one agrees with me, and I think 9 out of 10 tarot enthusiasts would happily believe that, not only is the Tarot de Marseille the best sequence, but the Conver/Tarot de Marseille II version is the preferred version. I still don't, at least for now.

I think it's much more improbable that a female figure would start off surrounded by three evangelists and a bull, in a mandorla, and then morph into Jesus Christ. Chronologically, the Vieville and the Dodal are older than the other existing TdMs, and the Besancon and Belgian seem to be based on the Tarot de Marseille I, worth exploring to help with dating I think. The images on the Cary Sheet, such as the Moon, agree with the Tarot de Marseille I, not the Tarot de Marseille II; so we have evidence of Tarot de Marseille I pattern iconography in circa 1500, and the earliest for Tarot de Marseille II is what, "probably" 1672? We also would need to remove the titles on the Sfroza World card, and ingeniously fill in the rest of the figures at the bottom of the card. More "correcting"?

Is this all clear cut? Nope. Will I change my mind? I often do. But for now, I still think Vieville to Conver much more likely than Conver to Vieville, so I'll continue to search.

I realise you dislike this whole "let's explore this together" approach, preferring, I suppose, to develop your theory in private and then release it to the world to appreciate (or not). Whereas, I tend to like to explore things as a group, so I enjoy the threads like this.

[Having had some of James' lemonade today, this last paragraph has been removed]

Hi Bad Robert

You said....Whereas, I tend to like to explore things as a group, so I enjoy the threads like this.

That is actually what a forum is about. It is nice to know that you recognise that. I appreciate it- otherwise I would just read self indulgent blogs where the stupids like me cannot comment

But really Christ? Nah that's the new Adam conquering the known world in all four directions like superman.
And he/she has a cigar in the hand......
As it has already been said....nothing personal- it's just a game -not a prayer book.
~Lorredan

In case you all had thought I had gone mad with the comment The New Adam- I thought maybe I should explain that I did not mean the Second Adam- Jesus Christ but the Humanist's New Adam as described by
Pico Mirandola who wrote the following concerning the creation of the universe and man's place in it:

“ But when the work was finished, the Craftsman kept wishing that there were someone to ponder the plan of so great a work, to love its beauty, and to wonder at its vastness. Therefore, when everything was done... He finally took thought concerning the creation of man... He therefore took man as a creature of indeterminate nature and, assigning him a place in the middle of the world, addressed him thus: "Neither a fixed abode nor a form that is thine alone nor any function peculiar to thyself have we given thee, Adam, to the end that according to thy longing and according to thy judgement thou mayest have and possess what abode, what form and what functions thou thyself shalt desire. The nature of all other beings is limited and constrained within the bounds of law. Thou shalt have the power to degenerate into the lower forms of life, which are brutish. Thou shalt have the power, out of thy soul's judgement, to be born into the higher forms, which are divine."

or a kind of pun of the standing Mars which I cannot find but here is the seated one- note the inscription
http://www.nga.gov/exhibitions/2009/tullio/index.shtm# Page 10 of gallery

I cannot make war unless I take my clothes off

~Lorredan

mjhurst wrote:The basic design of the card makes the Christian subject matter plain, and the troublesome "details" to be explained are the feminine features as well as the card's significance in the sequence. The family of explanations suggested above might not be ones you like, but they are readily available and have been in the Tarot world at least since Wald's passage was published by Kaplan. If you have a better explanation ("woodcutter's ignorance" is always popular) then we have multiple explanations to choose from, but you can't say that we have none.

Hello Michael,
I certainly must apologize because my previous post was very far from appropriately expressing the state of this issue. It also failed to convey the idea that I completely agree that Jesus Christ or a closely related allegory is the best available explanation.

Personally, I do not see this as an “Eureka” situation because I associate that word to the moment in which a number of pieces suddenly seem to fit together making perfectly clear a concept that was previously confused. In other words, I do not associate “Eureka” to the cases in which the overall meaning is clear, but my insufficient culture does not allow me to understand the meaning and the implications of some important items. So, this is not an “Eureka” case for me, but it may well be for others: my previous post was misleading since it implied that this interpretation problem is not a personal difficulty, but an objective state of things due to the lack of explanations (but explanations are available, as your reply exhaustively demonstrates).

I agree that the nudity and the lacking of beard of the Vieville figure suggest more a “Christ based allegory” than “historical” Christ: I also understand the concept of making the figure intentionally ambiguous, making it something else / more than Christ. The Saint Christophorus example makes it possible to interpret this simply as “Christ as World”, and for the time being I think this is what I find more convincing: the image represents both Christ and the World. This argument also holds for the Sforza Castle World, even if we do not know if the figure was naked. I do not have a clear opinion about the woman changing to a man or vice-versa, but the meaning of the allegory obviously changes. Typically, a man can represent Mundus (or other concepts corresponding to words of male gender) and a woman could represent Gloria, Anima, Lux (or other concepts corresponding to words of female gender).

I went to the library and checked a few books about the Judgement Christ of the Sistine Chapel. What I found more useful is Frederick Hartt's comment of the beardless Christ. He connects that figure to the “second Adam” (and Mary to the “second Eve”). It seems that beardless Christ appears as a Resurrected Christ, as a visual hint to his being “transfigured”. Hartt quotes an erlier example by Andrea del Castagno. Another beardless judging Christ was engraved by Duerer. Hartt says that the fact that Jesus is covered by cloth only at his waist is typical of the Crucifixion, and it is extremely rare to find that kind of image in a Resurrected Christ (as we see in Michelangelo). The torso of the Resurrected is always naked, in order to show the wound in the chest. The closer I could get to a naked (but interestingly asexual) Christ is a Microcosmus image from Seznec's “Survival of the ancient gods” (Monaco, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, ms lat. 13 003 fol. 7v). In this case (consistently with the cosmological character of the image) the four elements appear instead of the Tetramorphon.

“Mondo” is commonly translated as “World”, but actually it means “Cosmos” or “Universe” as well. Christ / Second Adam / the Human Being represents the perfect conclusion of the process of creation, the culmination, centre and essence of the Cosmos.

The content of this thread is excellent. I am grateful to all those that have contributed: I have learned something, and I could learn much more, if I were smarter!

I don't know what happened, but I now somehow manage not to feel like a fool when I read what Michael writes. Everything would be easier if I were more intelligent or Michael were more patient...but I know it is worth the effort anyway

Marco

As noted by Ross, Piscina makes reference to the four evangelists.

the Author has placed the image [or the "figure"] of the world in the middle of these four Holy Evangelists

If Piscina was looking at a World card similar to Vieville, he was interpreting the human figure at the centre of the card as the World. The other possibility (less likely, in my opinion) is that Piscina was looking at a card in which something else representing the World (for instance a circle as in the Visconti Sforza) was placed in the middle of the Four Evangelists.

it must be said that some of Piscina's interpretations of the trumps are quite strange. For instance, he speaks of the hanged-man as a suicide.

Marco

Lorredan wrote:In case you all had thought I had gone mad with the comment The New Adam- I thought maybe I should explain that I did not mean the Second Adam- Jesus Christ but the Humanist's New Adam as described by
Pico Mirandola...

I think it would be really helpful for me to see some images of the "New Adam". I don't know why I expect visual cognates rather than textural ones, but the Tarot does seem such a visual medium to me that for me to enthusastically entertain the New Adam as a possibility, I would hope that we can find some iconography that relates to the Tarot de Marseille World card??

Although we'll probably never know exactly which tiles Wald had seen, maybe we can learn something from Delft tiles (or Delftware) of the same genre (keywords for looking in Dutch: tegel, tegels (tile, tiles), Verkochte tegels, antique tiles; Christus, Christ, Jezus, Jesus)

I think there is a tendency to show prominent pectorals on men, which could be imaginatively mistaken for female breasts.

Here is one of the crucifixion:

http://www.antique-tileshop.nl/?do=prod ... f5f8fd1d33

The Rijksmuseum has some plates (not tiles), sorry they are so small, but in the scenes of the Beating and Mockery of Jesus you can see the pecs -


http://www.lejournaldelevasion.be/index ... &Itemid=29

Here is a tile of Eve being taken from Adam's side - he has at least one "pendulous breast", the other obviously just a pec, given the constraints of the medium or the style of the artist (I don't know much about ceramics, but many of these tiles at least are obviously not refined works; the plates are)

http://www.refdag.nl/artikel/1378328/
(no. 7)

I think that sometimes the depiction of prominent male pectorals could easily suggest female breasts.

By contrast, here is a real androgyne Christ, made for the Convent of the Hôpital de Notre Dame à la Rose in Lessines, Belgium, in the late 16th century (or so) -





http://www.lejournaldelevasion.be/index ... &Itemid=29

The author of this page on the history of N.D. à la Rose says that this was changed very soon after being painted because it disturbed the nuns, with the female features of Christ being altered to a more masculine look, and was only rediscovered in the course of restoration this century. This author also says that it is only one of three such figures known in the world (quite an assertion, but I can't disprove it).

http://www.lejournaldelevasion.be/index ... mitstart=1

Ross

robert wrote: I think it would be really helpful for me to see some images of the "New Adam". I don't know why I expect visual cognates rather than textural ones, but the Tarot does seem such a visual medium to me that for me to enthusastically entertain the New Adam as a possibility, I would hope that we can find some iconography that relates to the Tarot de Marseille World card??

Who could cards depict that was not Christ, was a humanist view, naked or nearly so, sometimes with halo and sometimes not- that the everyday man saw.......all over the place
Giovanni Baptisto (St John the Baptist)

http://www.picassomio.com/st-john-bapti ... 18271.html

I have in mind some other depictions and will come to them soon.
~Lorredan

Lorredan wrote: Who could cards depict that was not Christ, was a humanist view, naked or nearly so, sometimes with halo and sometimes not- that the everyday man saw.......all over the place
Giovanni Baptisto (St John the Baptist)

http://www.picassomio.com/st-john-bapti ... 18271.html

I have in mind some other depictions and will come to them soon.
~Lorredan

Yes, I've been thinking of him too. If not Christ, he would be my next top suspect.

here is a U tube.... http://www.encyclopedia.com/video/vpo7r ... ptist.aspx
Quite often shown with red drapery/young beardless youth..

I keep saying - but obviously no one believes me- it would be blasphemy to show Christ in cards- but not Saint John.
You can say the printers were ignorant and careless- but they were not. They had to be very careful of the images they printed.
I have a picture somewhere of His Victory (him inside a laurel wreathe with a scroll rolled in his hand) I will try and find it.
~Lorredan