Exploring the Cary Sheet

euripides said:

Interesting discussion.

THE STAR - does anyone else see a fishtail or lobster (ie mis-drawn crab from the Moon) tail sticking out of the water? ....

Click to expand...

I see a fishtail sticking out of the water. In fact, I see two. My friend le Pendu refuses to see it, and thinks it's supposed to be a crevasse in the rock. I think he's a dum-dum. (Sorry, Robert). If you look very closely at the wood cut striations in the water, meant to convey the surface of the water, and its movement, you can see a point of entry into the water, carefully delineated around the tail.

It makes me think we ought to consider relevant to the star, Saint Peter and the Fish in Masaccio's The Tribute Money -- see fish detail - where Saint Peter has been instructed by Jesus to collect money for taxes from the mouth of a fish. Of course that just shows a mouth and this a tail (if you agree it is a tail) - still I think the fact of kneeling down by a river of water (is it not a river?) recalls this image, and the fish, well, it just has to have something with Jesus.

It looks like a fish tail to me: in reference to possible connection with star of the magi and birth of Christ possibly a christos reference; also astronomical references with Aquarius to either tail of the southern fish or the fish tail of the goat. De Mellet associates the star card also with the creation of fishes.

Kwaw

It's a little difficult to clearly head one way or the other, from my perspective.

On the one hand, the clarity of detail on this sheet would suggest that if fish were intended, their detail would clearly and unequivocally appear as such. On the other, if the reference was 'clearly' known, the detail need only be hinted at.

I have at times also played with the possibility of there being fish-tails showing in the card, but have frankly never found the suggestion likely, and that for lack of reason and lack of clear detail.

With the reference to St Peter and the Fish (in Masaccio's The Tribute Money or textual reference), I frankly do not see that the Star card has sufficient similarity to the story to make it connected - though it is still an interesting and worthwhile avenue to further explore.

With De Mellet, he states (under "First series - Golden 'Age'/Century"):"Seventeenth, the creation of stars and fishes, represented by stars and Aquarius."

I'm not sure if from this late 18th century statement, and peculiar manner in which De Mellet saw the cards as Egyptian in essense, that we can draw too much... but it is interesting nonetheless.

(for the sake of cross-reference, it may also be worth noting two other threads that focus on the Cary Sheet: Cary Sheet / Tarot de Marseille decks / Visconti decks; and The Marseilles birth and influences. De Gebelin and the Comte de Mellet are also discussed in the thread De Gebelin and Comte de M***)

a Fish Tail???

Surely it is more of a Fish Tale!

Is there no one who will come to my aid and agree that it is just a crevice that LOOKS somewhat like a fish tail?

Here's the image again:
http://www.tarothistory.com//images/carystarmoon.jpg

No. I suggest that it is an "inlet", a small gap, a crevice.. in the edge of the stream. I see the same thing in the Moon card, with three at the top of the pool, or is that three more fish tails?

How many fishtails are on the Cary Sheet Star? The large one on the right? Is there another on the left next to her calf? Is there another in the middle next to her other knee?

What I DO think is interesting is how much these remind me of the "cliffs" on the visconti cards. Look! More fishtails!



And WHY does she have a Star on her shoulder? Or am *I* seeing things now?

Sorry Robert, no go. The little tiny crevasses on those cards are no match for the HUGE fish tail on the Cary Star.

She/he has a star on her/his shoulder to show that she/he is the star card. Why else?

On this particular issue (fish tails):

Firemaiden 1, le Pendu (a winner in every other respect) 0.

So sayeth a Pisces.

le pendu said:

a Fish Tail???

Surely it is more of a Fish Tale!

Is there no one who will come to my aid and agree that it is just a crevice that LOOKS somewhat like a fish tail?

Here's the image again:
http://www.tarothistory.com//images/carystarmoon.jpg

No. I suggest that it is an "inlet", a small gap, a crevice.. in the edge of the stream. I see the same thing in the Moon card, with three at the top of the pool, or is that three more fish tails?

How many fishtails are on the Cary Sheet Star? The large one on the right? Is there another on the left next to her calf? Is there another in the middle next to her other knee?

Click to expand...

I'm with Robert on this one. Inlet, like the one under her right shin. The effect is supposed to be the "edge", just like the Visconti cards he shows.

So what's the score now?

Ross

So Robert, how do you explain the shadow of the rest of the fish under the water? Or would that be crevice shadow? I don't see the fish tail as being the same as the Moon crevices, although I don't have a lot of time right now.

How can you say those aren't fish?
You can even see their little fishy faces...so cute.

Copy of astrological fresco (of original by Bembo commissioned by Visconti at Pavia??) commissioned by Rossi at Roccabianca (between two rivers including the Taro) shows Aquarius with a fish:


“- the Aquarius introduces with a fish in the right hand and a vase that the water in the left turns upside down. And' an arbitrary iconography, because usually the Aquarius does not hold in hand some fish, but a border of its cape.”

Not quite the same but it does show some association being made between Aquarius with fish by artists or their commissioners or sources in 15th century Milan:

http://translate.google.com/transla...q=Camera+di+griselda&gbv=2&ndsp=18&hl=en&sa=N

In original italian:
http://www.storiadimilano.it/Arte/roccabianca.htm

"The interiors once boasted a cycle of frescoes depicting the Life of Griselda, inspired by the 100th novella of Boccaccio's Decameron. Little remains today of it: the walls and vault of the room, together with the Pier Maria Rossi astrological cycle attributed to Nicolò da Varallo and his school have been detached and reassembled in the Castello Sforzesco in Milan."

http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0075-4390(1985)48%3C43:TAVOTC%3E2.0.CO;2-0

Kwaw