Famous Artwork Used in Tarot Imagery

I have seen several decks that use images taken from famous artwork, often cultural icons. The DaVinci Tarot, as well as the Botticelli Tarot, takes these artists’ works and uses them as the basis for an entire deck. This can be seen as homage to these artists, and credit is freely given to the source.

Then there are the collage decks, such as the Golden Tarot by Kat Black, the Lovers’ Tarot, or the Tarot de Paris. Famous artworks by different artists are juxtaposed and blended to create a tarot image, and again, the source material is credited.

Farther along, we have decks such as the PoMo Tarot, which take cultural icons such as Elvis Presley, and redraw the imagery. Using Picasso’s Guitar Player as the central figure for the 6 of Bills (coins) is tongue in cheek, but appropriate, and the accompanying book lists the images and artists.

It’s when the original artist isn’t credited that I think it’s wrong to use his imagery. Lo Scarabeo’s Tarot Art Nouveau uses an awful lot of classical, Renaissance, & Baroque sculptures as the basis for its imagery, but there is no mention in the LWB crediting the artists. I’m talking about using the Apollo Belvedere for the Magician, Bernini’s Rape of Persephone for the King of Pentacles, his David for the Knave of Swords, Praxiteles’ Hermes & Dionysus for the Sun, & Augustus Caesar is the Chariot driver.

At least these images are appropriate for the cards & their meanings, and you can say that these are such famous images, that using them sets up a resonance with the wider culture.

Then there’s the Connolly Tarot, which I just picked up this morning. It cheerfully borrows from several famous artists, but I don’t quite see how the cherub from Raphael’s Sistine Madonna enhances the meaning of the Ace of Cups, or how Michaelangelo’s drunken Bacchus belongs in the Lovers. Grunewald’s resurrected Christ as the chained figure in the major arcana #15 card (usually called the Devil, but here retitled “Materialism”) seems at odds with the painting’s meaning. Using Jesus from Leonardo’s Last Supper in the 9 of Cups is really a stretch. This is supposed to be a Christian deck, but I expect a lot of Christians blinked when they saw the imagery. No credit was given to the source material.

So, at what point does using someone else’s artwork cease being “inspired by” & become simply plagiarism?
K

I personally can't help getting a little annoyed when I see images which have been adapted from famous artwork and shoehorned into tarot poses. I had noticed this with the LoS Art Nouveau, The Apollo Belvedere and is that Giambologna's Centaur on the Strength card? I find a deck like this impossible to read and the original artwork comes to the fore of my thinking and if I wanted to read sculptures, I would walk around an art gallery "reading" the sculptures as tarot (which I don't do, I hasten to add!). I think it sends you "off-course" when reading if you immediately think of something else when looking at an image (well it does me...)

Decks like the like the Klimt and the Giotto, Durer etc are different as the deck itself is a kind of homage.

But when the image is recognisable, I think the artist should ask themselves how people are really going to react to this. Is the artist hoping the reader is ignorant and won't notice (i.e LoS Art Nouveau?) or is it actually part and parcel of the image (i.e the Mythic Ace of Cups looks uncannily like Botticelli's Birth of venus). If it is the latter then I can see a place for it...
I can't read with the Touchstone for example. Here the images really are undisguised, and credited and this part - actually - is quite interesting. But as a reading deck it says nothing to me. I see Holbein and Anne of Cleves and all the others.

Awful to say this but I feel that perhaps it only really works if we are ignorant of the original and don't have baggage.

Le Fanu said:

Awful to say this but I feel that perhaps it only really works if we are ignornat of the original and don't have baggage.

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I´m afraid you are quite right here.

I would like to add my current favourite, the new LS deck Sweet Twilight to this list. There´s a very well known Finnish painting (one of our national icons) borrowed in the six of swords.
See my post 149 in the thread below
http://www.tarotforum.net/showthread.php?t=117928&page=15&pp=10

However, that is just one card and one painting. It just pisses me off because it has this "national icon" status here. (And of course it could be just a coincidence, but I doubt it..) But I think many of the examples you both mentioned above are far more serious. Connolly is an example I have been wondering about. And having seen some of the originals .. well,the deck is quite a sacriledge really!
I have seen some scans of the Touchstone and I have been wondering how that is possible. It´s very much the same as using old masterpieces from classical music in TV commercials which I find terribly offending.

The very popular Victorian Romantic Tarot uses a spectrum of imagery (art engravings) that interested and inspired the 19th century So it is Victorian Classicism and some - not all are recognisable. In the LWB (I can not speak for what might be in a companion book) there is no mention of the Artists involved.
This does not seem to be what irks karenquilter. It is the the inappropriate use of images that do not fit the card named? Especially if they are famous works?
The Sacred Art Tarot LWB says To be Sacred is to encompass some essence of the Divine...well I do not think a famous Orphelia as the 10 swords has some essence of Divine, nor does Henry 8th as the King of Coins impress me overly- but in general the most of the cards are apt. I do not use it to read with, as most of the images although somewhat apt, seemed a forced fit- unlike the Victorian Romantic. Most decks that borrow Art seem to think it a uses powerful symbolic vocabulary that adds another dimension. When it works, it is great, but sometimes it will fail miserably. Mostly Art especially the famous paintings, were for another purpose (Obviously ) and no matter how posed for the card- something seems wrong.

karenquilter asks So, at what point does using someone else’s artwork cease being “inspired by” & become simply plagiarism?
I think the producers of said Decks are not really taking the artwork as their own- but trying to capture their views and ideas in the artwork of another.
Because much of the work is famous- it is an acknowledgment of the works origin even when unstated. It is the fact the sometimes it does not work.
Adolescent Jesus as the Ace of Coins for example.....strange.
~Rosanne

Rosanne said:

The very popular Victorian Romantic Tarot uses a spectrum of imagery (art engravings) that interested and inspired the 19th century So it is Victorian Classicism and some - not all are recognisable. In the LWB (I can not speak for what might be in a companion book) there is no mention of the Artists involved.

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The companion book, from memory, was fantastic in so many ways, including a short discussion on the source artworks for each card, how they were changed or merged, and sometimes why the elements were used. I loved that book.

On the one hand, I can see how recognisable artwork could make a deck unreadable, for the reasons mentioned above. But OTOH, if a deck were created that closely followed a great literary work that I loved, I know I'd find it much more readable than if I hadn't read the book in question. Does that make sense? Lord of the Rings, for example - if a (good) deck were made to use themes and scenes from the book I would find it so very immersive.

Am I adding to the discussion or derailing it???

\m/ Kat

As a fan of collage decks, I am accustomed to decks with recognizable artwork. Unlike Le Fanu, though, I find it contributes to my enjoyment of the deck rather than detracts from it. But perhaps that's because of my own forays into collage? I like the "spot the artwork" aspect of going through a new deck and saying "Ah, that's a Waterhouse, that's a Parrish, that's a Botticelli ..." To each their own!

I don't usually mind decks whose original art is "based on" existing artwork - like the lovely Castelli decks by Lo Scarabeo or Tarot of the Masters.

The only example I can think of where it irked me was in the Maat Tarot where several cards were essentially copies of other artists; Caravaggio springs to mind, but there were others. But that may only irk me because I didn't like the deck!

The Fantastic Menagerie is a borrowed artwork that I love and use frequently.
I can see what you mean Kat- I would love to apply Tarot to a complete fresco like Benozzo Gozzoli's Adoration of the Magi- but alas no Queens or a Hanged Man- would have to use some of his other works- then it becomes a forced fit. It still would be a homage to the Artist- but I wonder if it would be Tarot?

I agree with Jackdaw about spot the Artist aspect- I enjoy this also- I have those decks mentioned- whilst I enjoy them -I do not read with them. Perhaps for me, it is a complete folio of one Artist's work that has some cohesion- but the Victorian Romantic makes that a lie. Also the Housewives Tarot makes use of ads from the 50's and they are not by the same hand and some of those ads are as famouse as some old Masters.
Wipe it on, wipe it of ..Windolene..la la la etc.
Perhaps in the 'style of' works better.....
~Rosanne

The book that comes with the Kat Black Golden deck gives extensive info about the artwork used in the cards. I personally love this deck - it's the Medieval images that speak to me. I also have a daVinci deck, which I find hard to read, but loved the book that came with it, his quotes, etc. I would imagine there are licensing deals made to use these images with the institutions that own them, even though they are old enough to be public domain.

As an artist who occasionally does collage, there is always the question about of using a photo or image. I think that was just discussed in another thread.

The Tarot de Paris is All from photographs the author/artist took over a period of several years in the late 80's I believe. He was way ahead of the curve, and photoshop...

Rosanne said:

Perhaps in the 'style of' works better.....
~Rosanne

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"In the style of" would bring to mind a new image, done with, say, a brawny nude in a heroic pose (a la Michaelangelo) or using a gold circlet as a halo (a la Raphael). Putting Michaelangelo's God from the Creation of Adam fresco as an added figure in the Hermit (Connolly Tarot) is borrowing without paying interest.

Like LeFanu, I find decks like this hard to use.
K