Re: What is Tarot Art?

13
Lorredan wrote:Rather than get into the debate of who designed the Rider Waite and what is a copyist and and Artist or whether Tarot should remain a game (which is rather pointless anyway) or whether Tarot is Art and therefore a medium of expression where an individual and a culture come together- either skillful or not, meaningful or not...I offer this

Art is a male personal name, both in its own right and as a diminutive form of the common name Arthur; therefore in this case a little Art and a rather large Pamela. :p

~Lorredan
Thanks for not wishing to contribute sensibly to the debate - but clearly the title of the subject is "What is Tarot Art?" and not how playful and mischievous one can be with the English language?
:D

Re: What is Tarot Art?

15
So, we can confidently say that there is nothing relevant happening in the tarot world in aesthetic terms. Lulling ourselves into looking at them as works of art forces us to exist within a bubble, carefully protected from the realities of the art world.
debra wrote:Far be it from me to defend the vampires and goldfish. But. If they bring some amusement, they're not much different than a light play. Drama has room for comedy and silliness as well as tragedy.

Tarot, like many art forms, has certain formulaic requirements. Church art, for example, was never free-form; there are conventions and expectations that must be met to communicate. Working within a tradition may be a greater test of artistic creativity than doing whatever one fancies.
There are very few REALITIES in the so-called ArtWorld, but Tarot Art does use the Gestalt principle and each image is really a surreal riddle.

Re: What is Tarot Art?

16
Mefisto wrote:So, we can confidently say that there is nothing relevant happening in the tarot world in aesthetic terms.
Actually I might partly agree with that.

I've noticed a lack of care as decks are rushed out. The most recent deck I have that seemed to be different was the Diary of a Broken Soul, and she spent three years on that. My benchmark is the Wheel of Change tarot which took ten years. I figure it takes YEARS to get the art right, to say something meaningful in a full 78-card deck. I have become skeptical of 6-months-in-the-making decks.

Self-publishing is popular, but that doesn't mean it should be published.

I do think that one has to base an opinion about decks on an individual basis though. I find myself uncomfortable with the broadness of your statement. It has a tinge off all good/all bad to it.

Art is not a binary territory.

Re: What is Tarot Art?

17
Mefisto wrote:There are very few REALITIES in the so-called ArtWorld, but Tarot Art does use the Gestalt principle and each image is really a surreal riddle.
I like the idea that each card is itself a little work of art, whether it be called serious, pop, or comic art. But perhaps a very few decks (such as the Noblet decks, for instance) will end up, history will tell, contributors to the canon of art.
cadla wrote:Self-publishing is popular, but that doesn't mean it should be published.
I've always said that just because you can do something doesn't necessarily meant you should. ;)

Re: What is Tarot Art?

18
Although Enrique didn't want to get into who was the 'artist' of the RWS deck - I thought I'd bring it up - for two reasons.

1) A comment on "So You Think You Can Dance" (TV) - where one of the judges likened the choreographer of a dance to the artist and the dancer to the artist's paintbrush. When someone hires an artist to paint a specific vision - who is the creator? Aren't we moving more into a situation where one person's skill and 'artistry' is directed in order to manifest another person's creative vision? To what extent was PCS a brush in the hands of Waite? Was the deck a 'work for hire'?

2) Stuart Kaplan said in an interview that copyright on the RWS deck would not run out until 2021—that is, 70 years after PCS's death. In a collaborative work, copyright runs until 70 years after the death of the longest lived author and in England and most of Europe, this is retroactive even to formerly public domain works. (In the US, works published anywhere in the world before 1923 are in the public domain—but problems arise if sold elsewhere.) As a work-for-hire, copyright does not rest with PCS. Interview: http://usgs.typepad.com/blog/2010/07/st ... aplan.html

Re: What is Tarot Art?

19
Hi Mary,
Mary Greer wrote: 2) Stuart Kaplan said in an interview that copyright on the RWS deck would not run out until 2021—that is, 70 years after PCS's death. In a collaborative work, copyright runs until 70 years after the death of the longest lived author and in England and most of Europe, this is retroactive even to formerly public domain works. (In the US, works published anywhere in the world before 1923 are in the public domain—but problems arise if sold elsewhere.) As a work-for-hire, copyright does not rest with PCS. Interview: http://usgs.typepad.com/blog/2010/07/st ... aplan.html
Thanks for posting the link that interview (and on your blog as well).

IMHO, Kaplan's claim is bogus. Your point about collaboration vs. work-for-hire would be a good test. But who is in a position to test it in court? I also believe it is an absolute fact that any work published in the US before 1923 is in the public domain, and cannot be "re-copyrighted" (with the exception of Disney's Mickey Mouse and maybe some others who had the muscle to change the law for themselves).

US Games is too big to be challenged by the average person interested in Tarot; maybe only another, larger corporation could do it (Carta Mundi maybe?). I also don't know if USG has tested their position internationally.

I wonder about your statement "this is retroactive even to formerly public domain works" - I can't imagine that is the case. Once a work goes into the public domain, anybody can use it. What if someone has profited off of their re-use of a public domain item, only to find that someone later re-copyrighted it? Do they owe all the money they made to the new owner, and try to destroy all copies they can find of their use of the formerly public domain work? I think that scenario is too much of a can of worms to be realistic.
Image

Re: What is Tarot Art?

20
Ross G. R. Caldwell wrote:I wonder about your statement "this is retroactive even to formerly public domain works" - I can't imagine that is the case. Once a work goes into the public domain, anybody can use it. What if someone has profited off of their re-use of a public domain item, only to find that someone later re-copyrighted it? Do they owe all the money they made to the new owner, and try to destroy all copies they can find of their use of the formerly public domain work? I think that scenario is too much of a can of worms to be realistic.
Here's from the Wikipedia page on Public Domain:
"[In some European Union countries] there is a transitory phase in which works that already were out of copyright in one EU country suddenly became copyright protected again in that country on July 1, 1995 because they were still protected in some other EU country."
I read somewhere about how a publisher is then allowed to continue publishing prior public domain works providing they agree to now pay a reasonable amount—which is often nominal.

The more I look into copyright the more crazy it becomes. Furthermore, courts often side with whoever has the most money or clout rather than with the law. For instance, Disney's right to Mickey Mouse and England's copyright extension for Peter Pan (although this is for a good cause).