He goes into greater depth than just the poem, so hopefully someone will put it up for us. If not, I can certainly get to it after my essay is written (I'm terribly behind and keep coming here instead of reading and writing!!! Damn, why isn't there a degree in tarot history!? Who the hell cares about Victorian Transportation?!!).Marcei wrote:Thank you, Robert.
Unfortunately I have yet to order that deck. I look forward to doing so and reading the booklet that you mention. I do have the earlier hand-printed majors and some information including the verse on color that Jean Claude published a while back. I don't however, remember anything that addressed the elements of specific images including the flesh and clothing I mentioned.
I don't think you're out of place at all, and besides Ross, I don't think there's an actual historian among us. So forget that thinking! I think much of this comes down to the reason we are exploring tarot history, and our approaches to it. I have no agenda or personal theory (other than the lack of numbers and titles on the early Tarot de Marseille, and even that I am still just exploring), but my goal is to find "the historical truth", I want to know what actually happened and to solve the many mysteries that still do survive about the creation of this wonderful set of cards.Marcei wrote:While I love reading history, I make no pretense of being a historian. Perhapes I am really out of place in stating my observations on this forum, but I think you guys are tough enough to tolerate a divergent point of view from time to time.
In this particular case, I'd be absolutely happy to see a sensible key to explain colour symbolism used in the tarot, but based on actually looking at the cards and the use of colour, and comparing different decks, I'm not inclined to believe there actually is one. Eugim has mentioned yellow shows on the Bateleur.. and hinted that it must mean something, but then we have the Noblet without the yellow shoes.. and if the yellow means something on the shoes, then shouldn't it "mean" something everywhere that it is used? And if so, the meaning will have to be explained as well for the Yellow Belt on the Bateleur, and the Yellow Bag on the table, and the one Yellow Cup, and the Yellow Knife.. and that's just on the Bateleur card (these last references from the Noblet). If we are going to say that the "Yellow Knife" means something, then it should be reflected in the other uses as well shouldn't it? And on top of that we would need to explain why only some decks have it that colour, and others don't.
Of course, some colours just "make sense", like colouring the Sun yellow, indeed, it might be meaningful if every deck coloured it red! But event then, how can we say that Yellow= x and Red = y, but only apply it to things that we think are important and ignore all the other uses of it?
So, I'm not closed minded about a colour system, and I do believe that colour had meaning then, just as it does now, and that traditions were followed (red on the pope)... but I just don't see any evidence of a system of "meaning" in the use of colours, and when people say that there is one, then they really should step forward and share it and not leave it. How can we evaluate and test the theory if the theory isn't even presented?