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Re: Pamela Colman Smith Shrine

Posted: 25 Jul 2011, 11:53
by Ross G. R. Caldwell
Merlin published the S Series "Prima Causa" in 1869, plate 5.

Earlier, in 1859, he published it as well.

Waite reviews Merlin in the Pictorial Key, so there is no doubt they knew it.

Re: Pamela Colman Smith Shrine

Posted: 25 Jul 2011, 12:14
by SteveM
Thanks Ross, knew I had seen it before, searched google books but couldn't find it again (and it's on my hard-drive, duh - dowloaded it originally looking for images of the boiardo I think). This copy only has two of the evangelists for some reason:

http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=rq_Q ... &q&f=false

Waite specifically mentions Merlin when discussing this series of prints, and of an analogy between the first cause and the world card:
Among ancient cards which are mentioned in connexion with the Tarot, there are firstly those of Baldini, which are the celebrated set attributed by tradition to Andrea Mantegna, though this view is now generally rejected. Their date is supposed to be about 1470, and it is thought that there are not more than four collections extant in Europe. A copy or reproduction referred to 1485 is perhaps equally rare. A complete set contains fifty numbers, divided into five denaries or sequences of ten cards each. There seems to be no record that they were used for the purposes of a game, whether of chance or skill; they could scarcely have lent themselves to divination or any form of fortune-telling; while it would be more than idle to impute a profound symbolical meaning to their obvious emblematic designs.

The first denary embodies Conditions of Life, as follows: (i) The Beggar, (2) the Knave, (3) the Artisan, (4) the Merchant, (5) the Noble, (6) the Knight, (7) the Doge, (8) the King, (9) the Emperor, (10) the Pope. The second contains the Muses and their Divine Leader: (11) Calliope, (12) Urania, (13) Terpsichore, (14) Erato, (15) Polyhymnia, (16) Thalia, (17) Melpomene, (18) Euterpe, (19) Clio, (20) Apollo. The third combines part of the Liberal Arts and Sciences with other departments of human learning, as follows: (21) Grammar, (22) Logic, (23) Rhetoric, (24) Geometry, (25) Arithmetic, (26) Music, (27) Poetry,(28) Philosophy, (29) Astrology, (30) Theology. The fourth denary completes the Liberal Arts and enumerates the Virtues: (31) Astronomy, (32) Chronology, (33) Cosmology, (34) Temperance, (35) Prudence, (36) Strength, (37) Justice; (38) Charity, (39) Hope, (40) Faith. The fifth and last denary presents the System of the Heavens (41) Moon, (42) Mercury, (43) Venus, (44) Sun, (45) Mars, (46) Jupiter, (47) Saturn, (48) A Eighth Sphere, (49) Primum Mobile, (50) First Cause.

We mnst set aside the fantastic attempts to extract complete Tarot sequences out of these denaries; we must forbear from saying, for example, that the Conditions of Life correspond to the Trumps Major, the Muses to Pentacles, the Arts and Sciences to Cups, the Virtues, etc., to Sceptres, and the conditions of life to Swords. This kind of thing can be done by a process of mental contortion, but it has no place in reality. At the same time, it is hardly possible that individual cards should not exhibit certain, and even striking, analogies. The Baldini King, Knight and Knave suggest the corresponding court cards of the Minor Arcana. The Emperor, Pope, Temperance, Strength, justice, Moon and Sun are common to the Mantegna and Trumps Major of any Tarot pack. Predisposition has also connected the Beggar and Fool, Venus and the Star, Mars and the Chariot, Saturn and the Hermit, even Jupiter, or alternatively the First Cause, with the Tarot card of the World.[1] But the most salient features of the Trumps Major are wanting in the Mantegna set, and I do not believe that the ordered sequence in the latter case gave birth, as it has been suggested, to the others. Romain Merlin maintained this view, and positively assigned the Baldini cards to the end of the fourteenth century.

1.4 The Tarot In History
If it be agreed that, except accidentally and sporadically, the Baldini emblematic or allegorical pictures have only a shadowy and occasional connexion with Tarot cards, and, whatever their most probable date, that they can have supplied no originating motive, it follows that we are still seeking not only an origin in place and time for the symbols with which we are concerned, but a specific case of their manifestation on the continent of Europe to serve as a point of departure, whether backward or forward.

(1. The beggar is practically naked, and the analogy is constituted by the presence of two dogs, one of which seems to be flying at his legs. The Mars card depicts a sword-bearing warrior in a canopied chariot, to which, however, no horses are attached. Of course, if the Baldini cards belong to the close of the fifteenth century, there is no question at issue, as the Tarot was known in Europe long before that period.)
Merlin lists analogies between the tarot cards and the allegorical series, including that between the figure of Jupiter and First Cause with that of the tarot card the world on p.37:

http://books.google.co.uk/books?pg=PA37 ... &q&f=false

As far as I understand it on p.39 he says something along the lines of:

5 The Prima causa of the Mantegna & XXI The World of the Tarot

At first glance one can not see any connection between these two designs except through the symbols of the four evangelists located on one ... symbols which are not present in the engravings of 1470... but if one questions what (is the connection) with this image of concentric circles in the Figure of Prima Causa and the answer shall be that this figure of concentric circles is the world according to the Ptolemaic system ... the only one known in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. If one wants to point out also that the World is the final trump of the tarot as the Prima causa is the final figure of the encyclopedic series of images then one can no longer doubt that the author of tarot took the title of the World card from the figure of the Mantegna.

Re: Pamela Colman Smith Shrine

Posted: 25 Jul 2011, 15:10
by Ross G. R. Caldwell
SteveM wrote:Thanks Ross, knew I had seen it before, searched google books but couldn't find it again (and it's on my hard-drive, duh - dowloaded it originally looking for images of the boiardo I think). This copy only has two of the evangelists for some reason:

http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=rq_Q ... &q&f=false


Merlin lists analogies between the tarot cards and the allegorical series, including that between the figure of Jupiter and First Cause with that of the tarot card the world on p.37:

http://books.google.co.uk/books?pg=PA37 ... &q&f=false

As far as I understand it on p.39 he says something along the lines of:

5 The Prima causa of the Mantegna & XXI The World of the Tarot

At first glance one can not see any connection between these two designs except through the symbols of the four evangelists located on one ... symbols which are not present in the engravings of 1470... but if one questions what (is the connection) with this image of concentric circles in the Figure of Prima Causa and the answer shall be that this figure of concentric circles is the world according to the Ptolemaic system ... the only one known in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. If one wants to point out also that the World is the final trump of the tarot as the Prima causa is the final figure of the encyclopedic series of images then one can no longer doubt that the author of tarot took the title of the World card from the figure of the Mantegna.
Yes, I don't know why the 1869 book shows the S-Series with only two evangelists, but the 1859 article in the Revue Archéologique XVI (1859 - in three parts; the book appears to be an unedited version of the article, except for rearranging the plates) shows all four:


http://www.rosscaldwell.com/images/taro ... 59-410.jpg

The article appears in this online version -
http://books.google.com/books?id=ByoGAA ... no&f=false
- but I can't find the other one with all the plates in their correct places (there are a few online). Anyway, the one I attached shows how the Prima Causa could be associated with the World, as Merlin did. He was in fact the first person to develop the theory that the (pseudo-)Mantegna images were the basis for the Tarot.

Comparing Hind's images of the E and S Series with Zucker's in The Illustrated Bartsch, shows that Hind used an S Series from Chatsworth, while Zucker used one from Vienna. The latter shows only the two bottom evangelical animals, upon which Zucker comments, "The Vienna impression illustrated in the picture atlas shows only the symbols in the lower corners, of Matthew and Luke. John's eagle and Mark's lion are missing from the upper corners since the entire section of the print has been torn aways and restored with the corresponding section of an impression of [the E Series]. An illustration taken from the complete impression in Chatsworth is herein reproduced".
(he then reproduces Hind's Chatsworth S-Series image)

Zucker's Vienna image clearly shows the tear and the reparation - I'll scan it for you.

I can't imagine that Merlin first used a Chatsworth in 1859 and then a Vienna for 1869, so something else is going on.

Ross

Re: Pamela Colman Smith Shrine

Posted: 25 Jul 2011, 15:53
by Ross G. R. Caldwell
Here is Hind's depiction of the E and S Series -
(click on the URL underneath each image for a full-sized version)


http://www.rosscaldwell.com/images/taro ... I-50ab.jpg

Zucker's Vienna impression of the S Series Prima Causa. The break in the border and line across the top shows where the missing part was replaced (note that the cross-hatching is an artifact of my scan, and not in the book))


http://www.rosscaldwell.com/images/taro ... 24-149.jpg

Zucker's comments on all three impressions -


http://www.rosscaldwell.com/images/taro ... 4-3-61.jpg

Re: Pamela Colman Smith Shrine

Posted: 29 Jul 2011, 01:00
by hoo
Well Sumada, there it all is ! You people on this forum are amazing. Everything at your fingertips. I feel that Sumada's proposal that Pamela Coleman Smith used the 4 evangelists from the Mantegna deck has been supported here with as much evidence as we are likely to get, short of a recorded statement from her or someone of her time.

Jugenstil (Fin De Siecle art magazine)

Posted: 20 Aug 2011, 06:09
by hoo
Hi again Peeps ! I've found another treasure trove. This one does not contain any of the work of PCS, so far as I can tell, but it is an important survey of the art world she inhabited. A german magazine called Jugend (meaning 'youth'). This magazine gave it's name to the German word used for what we call 'Art Nouveau - 'jugendstil'.

Heidelberug U. has digitized almost every issue and put it on their site.
http://diglit.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/diglit/jugend

Here are some instructions - On the page linked to above, you will see a list of issues. Click on one. This will open a page for that issue with a list of text links for each page of the issue. On that page, click on the largish cover illo at upper right. This will open a webpage of thumbnails for every page of the issue on one webpage. It takes a little time to load, but not too long. Some of the thumbnails are currently not showing ( In safari I get a blue box with a question mark, meaning the image has not loaded). But if you click on them, they will open onto the full digital facsimile of the page anyway, just like the thumbnails that you can see do.
Now, to the upper left directly over the image is a row of tiny icons. The one that is a plus sign can be clicked 3 times, giving you an image that is much bigger than the opening resolution. In your browser bar, at the end of the URL you will see a number 4, like this
http://diglit.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/digl ... oomlevel=4

Each issue is also available as a pdf from a link in the box at the far upper left of each image page, and on the main page for each issue. In the rectangle in the center toward the top of the page, you will see the button for the pdf ( It says 'download' on it). It is at the right side of the rectangle and just next to the cover illo which I told you to click on to get to the page full of thumbnails. You can click on each pages link from this list on the main page, but clicking the cover illo and using the thumbnail links is better because there are quite a few advertisement pages (These too are interesting, but repetitious)

I love looking at this stuff. One can really see the Fin De Siecle style in these endless pages of paintings and illustrations. I love Art Nouveau anyway. But I see constant reminders of the style of the Waite-Smith Tarot deck. The collection starts in the year 1896, which, as it turns out, was a very good year for art. This is the magic number for Art Nouveau in magazines, as far as I can tell. Looking at many other publications from the same era, It seems that before that year, things were not so Psychedelic, and harkend back more to Beaux Arts. After about 1900, things start to look less like that of Alphonse Mucha, and more like the works of Toulouse Lautrec. Called 'Post-Impressionism' on Wikipedia. Pamela Colman Smith's art seems to me to be somewhere in the middle of all this.

From this page
http://www.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/Englisc ... lcome.html
You can also get to digitasl facsimiles of another similar mag called 'Pan" (though not as many issues). Clicking on the box with the illo in it will open an intermediary page with alot of text about the magazine. In that text you will find a text link that opens a page with a list of each issue in the same format as described above for Jugend. I recently spent an entire weekend downloading and perusing these beautiful treasures. I hope you will too.

The Tarot has a modern history as well as an antique one. These magazines serve to illuminate it's international 'Bohemian' milieu. and do it quite beautifully.

Re: Pamela Colman Smith Shrine

Posted: 10 Feb 2015, 04:38
by Mary Greer
I've been posting a series on my blog featuring U.S. newspaper articles on Pamela Colman Smith from 1899-1914. There's lots of bits of new information and some new photos and illustrations.

https://marygreer.wordpress.com/2015/02 ... e-heights/

https://marygreer.wordpress.com/2015/02 ... 1896-1899/

https://marygreer.wordpress.com/2015/02 ... ry-teller/

https://marygreer.wordpress.com/2015/02 ... pectacles/