What kind of Crustacean is on the Moon Card?

lucifall, I hear your point, I'm just not sure that the crayfish has four sections on its claws. The one on the right has only three and it's on the land. The one on the left seems to only have three, but the section on the end is bigger than the same one on the other side and it looks like it could be two sections fused together. I don't really know what to make of it. Smith might have done it on purpose to make it look a little creepier.

Crayfish

laura_borealis said:

...or the artist wasn't very skilled.
Compare the crustacean on the Soprafino. Della Rocca was a skilled artist and his depiction is unambiguous. It looks as if he had an actual (and cooked!) crawfish in front of him as he drew it. Pamela Colman Smith's is an improvement over the Marseilles-type crawfish, but is similar enough to it that I believe she based it on the earlier card rather than drawing from life.

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Thanks Laura
The Moon card of Soprafino looks great! An unambiguous Crawfish.
It is a cooked one, on the plate already, the plate is striking!
Do you have a book with the Sofrafino set, or an idea, as i am curious how they explain the Plate (the Yummie I understand..!!
The Marseille crawfish could have been an example, I think she was skilled enough to draw 3 particles instead of 4, when she should have used an example from a Bestiary from Waite's Library.(assuming he owned such a book)
But in the set there are more varieties in numbers, the most striking, I think are the 5 streams on Ace of Cups and the 4 Waite is talking about.


Edited: Abrac convinced me there are 3 particles.

Luci

Abrac said:

lucifall, I hear your point, I'm just not sure that the crayfish has four sections on its claws. The one on the right has only three and it's on the land. The one on the left seems to only have three, but the section on the end is bigger than the same one on the other side and it looks like it could be two sections fused together. I don't really know what to make of it. Smith might have done it on purpose to make it look a little creepier.
Crayfish

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Thanks Abrac
The left Claw is longer, you are right about the 3 particles on the right, but this claw looks like it has to be.
Looking to the right Claw you see a black thick line just under the Claw.
This Claw is half as it should be, it misses the "underpart"
It is a Cripple Crayfish!
http://img580.imageshack.us/img580/2951/7bc100cf4236db4c370664b.jpg
Morphology of Crayfish:
http://img413.imageshack.us/img413/6954/7fdfc383d264eef74689409.jpg

Luci

I don't think there IS a "Soprafino LWB".... I think in those days they didn't bother with such things !

Kaplan reckons it is very similar to the 1JJ, of which he says:

This would be a "Soprafino" Tarot if it were Italian. The images are finely detailed coloured engravings. But it's a Soprafino that has remained in production to the present day, so what you get are new printings rather than faded reproductions. This will be to some people's tastes, but not everyone's. The colours will be much louder than a reproduction deck.

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Now the crustacean in THAT - well, draw your own conclusions - are those shrimps next to it ? But definitely 3 segments.

lucifall said:

Thanks Abrac
url]http://img580.imageshack.us/img580/2951/7bc100cf4236db4c370664b.jpg[/url]
Morphology of Crayfish:
http://img413.imageshack.us/img413/6954/7fdfc383d264eef74689409.jpg
Luci

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Sorry to keep going on this, but on all pictures,the drawings etc, i find of the Crayfish The movement of the 2 x 4 legs is in another direction than on the one pictured on the Moon.
The Crayfish on the Moon of the Marseille tarot is moving its legs in the same direction as the picture of the Morphology
http://img249.imageshack.us/img249/6030/b58a928dad64fe8c317dace.jpg

This fits which Waite writes in the PKT:
"symbolized by crawling from the Abyss of water to the land, but as a rule it sinks back whence it came"
So it is pausible to assume, Pam was aware of the way of movement, as she had to picture the Crayfish sinking back, walking backwards.

Luci

gregory said:

Now the crustacean in THAT - well, draw your own conclusions - are those shrimps next to it ? But definitely 3 segments.

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3 segments, yes.
shrimps... mmmm , culinair triple!
Somehow I see 2 snails in it. At least i see 2 crustaceans both "walking" in another direction, as the sphinxes of the Chariot.(see the tails, which directs these animals)

gregory said:

Now the crustacean in THAT - well, draw your own conclusions - are those shrimps next to it ? But definitely 3 segments.

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No shrimps and no snails:The two lower claws are seperated from the body,and Pam's One seems to be cripple....

I found this in a review by Lee A Bursten of the IJJ Swiss tarot deck
It mentions:
"Two of the Major cards are interesting from an artistic point of view, in that they take elements of the traditional Marseilles designs and deconstruct them so they appear almost abstract. Both of these cards are cut in half into an upper and a lower scene by a sort of ledge. In the Chariot, the chariot and its driver are separated by this ledge into two wholly separate pictures. In the Moon, the upper picture shows a young man serenading his lover, while the lower picture shows the customary crayfish, except that the two lower claws of the crayfish have actually separated from the body, so that a realistically drawn crayfish seems to be metamorphosing into an abstract design"

To see the chariot:
http://img255.imageshack.us/img255/7735/7ea8585b9f6e09664ace938.jpg
It is interesting that both The Moon and Chariot are pictured in this abstract way.

"Lady of Night, that ever turning about us, art now visible and now invisible in they season, be favorable to lovers and hunters, and to all men that toil upon the earth, and to all mariners upon the sea." - Aleister Crowley, Liber XV

brightcrazystar said:

"Lady of Night, that ever turning about us, art now visible and now invisible in they season, be favorable to lovers and hunters, and to all men that toil upon the earth, and to all mariners upon the sea." - Aleister Crowley, Liber XV

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And the crustacean ?

The crustacean is man, not yet manifest. It is the ego attracted to the solar system, perhaps by venture deciding to incarnate by that battle which destroys millions. It is the fact that not all ovum are fertilized, and not all sperm find purchase. That is what it is, a sperm seeking the path of the light. it passes into the gates of life, and later it is those same gates it will pass back through, in Death.