Re: The Star
Posted: 07 Apr 2012, 20:20
Hi Robert,
I made a joke about the original Tarot de Marseille creator and called him "Jos Bleau". I've read somewhere that's Canadian french for Jonh Doe and find it obscure enough to be a private joke. Of course, from such a small sample it is very risk to make assumptions of any kind. But the same would be truth for most of the Science of History.
My assumptions seem reasonable to me. Not right, just reasonable.
1)"Jos Bleau" creator of Tarot de Marseille, whoever he was, was a creative, original, artist that lived in France and produced his work around or a little before 1650. Someone must be the first to put a naked nynph like girl pouring water on the Star card. Does not matter much if he is Noblet or other person. The Cary Sheet, the nearest surviving relative, shows, as Pen instructed me, a boy. And the Tarot de Marseille as a whole is unlike its predecessors..
2)The Jean Noblet tarot did not included the bird. And it is at least 50 year older than any one that included it. So it is reasonable to suppose that the original "Jos Bleau" tarot did not included the bird, being a later addition.
3)Artisans sometimes traveled and changed shops, bringing knowledge from their original Masters. Besides, the XVII century was very unlike modern times. Me, my father and my son all have very different cultural references. But at time, cultural references changed much slower. It seems reasonable that card makers of France understood each other much better than we do.
4) Dodal (or whoever created the bird) had a reason to add it. It seems unlikely that he simply wasted ink to add an unimportant detail that would not improve his selling, if not for some artistic reason. It seems that reason would come from how he understood the card. Of course it could come from an "ink speck" or any other number of reasons. But, again, Historians reconstruct entire civilizations from a little more than accounting records and pottery. There is no point of discuss Tarot History without some educated guess.
"Dodal created the bird 50 years later. He had Noblet's card as a model." is just a much shorter version of what I just said. And, despite my obvious failure, I REALLY try to not write too much. lol
Am I being so far fetched?
A great hug,
I made a joke about the original Tarot de Marseille creator and called him "Jos Bleau". I've read somewhere that's Canadian french for Jonh Doe and find it obscure enough to be a private joke. Of course, from such a small sample it is very risk to make assumptions of any kind. But the same would be truth for most of the Science of History.
My assumptions seem reasonable to me. Not right, just reasonable.
1)"Jos Bleau" creator of Tarot de Marseille, whoever he was, was a creative, original, artist that lived in France and produced his work around or a little before 1650. Someone must be the first to put a naked nynph like girl pouring water on the Star card. Does not matter much if he is Noblet or other person. The Cary Sheet, the nearest surviving relative, shows, as Pen instructed me, a boy. And the Tarot de Marseille as a whole is unlike its predecessors..
2)The Jean Noblet tarot did not included the bird. And it is at least 50 year older than any one that included it. So it is reasonable to suppose that the original "Jos Bleau" tarot did not included the bird, being a later addition.
3)Artisans sometimes traveled and changed shops, bringing knowledge from their original Masters. Besides, the XVII century was very unlike modern times. Me, my father and my son all have very different cultural references. But at time, cultural references changed much slower. It seems reasonable that card makers of France understood each other much better than we do.
4) Dodal (or whoever created the bird) had a reason to add it. It seems unlikely that he simply wasted ink to add an unimportant detail that would not improve his selling, if not for some artistic reason. It seems that reason would come from how he understood the card. Of course it could come from an "ink speck" or any other number of reasons. But, again, Historians reconstruct entire civilizations from a little more than accounting records and pottery. There is no point of discuss Tarot History without some educated guess.
"Dodal created the bird 50 years later. He had Noblet's card as a model." is just a much shorter version of what I just said. And, despite my obvious failure, I REALLY try to not write too much. lol
Am I being so far fetched?
A great hug,