Renaissance Canon article mentions early Tarot

foolish

these images can be seen at
http://www.art-prints-on-demand.com/a/hieronymus-bosch/the-prodigal-son-aka-the.html
and
http://www.art-prints-on-demand.com/a/hieronymus-bosch/the-conjurer.html

Bernice

Mabuse said:
Readers of this forum might find this article interesting
http://media.www.thelaf.com/media/s.../Ae/Renaissance.Canon.Exclusive-3978218.shtml

Many thanks Mabuse. This extract of the review resonates with me;

.....The Bishop's palace in Trent, Castello di Buonconsiglio, is the earliest example, with frescos covering the walls of the palace. The scenes depict the social order of the time, with monks and peasants, who are hieratically smaller, working in the fields. "This is contrasted with the aristocrats, who are throwing snowballs," Ahl said.

i.e: Social order of the times..........

Bee

eta: Probably why the Pope & Papess had such low values in the card games

Ross G Caldwell

Huck said:
Hm ... does Linda Harris speak of "Heresy" or of "Catharic background" with some clearer reference to the earlier Albigensian community?

Indeed, it seems, that she reflected this. This website ...

http://www.boschwebsite.com/Interpretation_Harris.html

... takes some critical distance with ...

"The whole thing is such total nonsense, stretching rubbery interpretation well beyond its breaking point."

Well, naturally, I don't know, if that is a worthwhile commentary, so I better check the name of the author.
Oh, that's "A Hieronymus Bosch website created by Adam McLean" ... and Adam McLean is a well respected author about medieval esoteric stuff with a very, very extended website about the rather difficult topic "alchemy".

http://www.levity.com/alchemy/

... and from this it's rather obvious (at least me would assume so), that Linda Harris probably has bad cards in this question.

Thanks for pointing that out that review Huck.

I have unqualified respect for Adam McLean's expertise in the subject of alchemy. When he ventured into Tarot a few times, he was out of depth and made many basic mistakes. You can't know everything, especially in an area where profound acquaintance with the primary and secondary sources - i.e. specialization - is an absolute requirement to veer from the consensus and propose even apparently simple conjectures (such as in alchemy or tarot history, or Catharism). I wouldn't dare presume to argue alchemy with Adam McLean.

Because some of Bosch's obscure allegorical imagery makes obvious allusions to chemical/alchemical tools and processes, McLean knows quite a bit about him, so his review of Harris' book seems right on target.

In order to explain the lack of evidence for her thesis, at one point Harris states :

"We should not assume that where there are no records of Cathars, no Cathars existed."

Really ! She obviously applies the logical rule of transposition (~R -> ~C) <-> (C -> R) in a way not recognised by logic. Logicians would say that the statement "if no records exist then no Cathars" is equivalent to saying "the existence of Cathars implies the existence of records". She is saying "if no records exist then no Cathars" is equivalent to saying "Cathars exist" (~R -> ~C) <-> C. Last time I checked propositional logic this was not so. This is like saying - the fact that there is no evidence of Polar bears in the Antarctic does not mean that they are not there. If you accept her logic then you can rewrite history in any way you want, as you don't need any evidence.

(My bold emphasis) That seems to about sum up the quality of Harris' argument.

Ross G Caldwell

Mabuse said:
Readers of this forum might find this article interesting
http://media.www.thelaf.com/media/s.../Ae/Renaissance.Canon.Exclusive-3978218.shtml

Thanks Mabuse. I'm glad to see Tarot cards being referenced as popular art of the period. This is somewhat new, but it is not long (in academic/literary terms) since it has been definitively established that Tarot originated in 15th century Italy, so it takes a while for this kind of information to seep through.

Unfortunately, the majority of these paintings have been destroyed in war. According to Ahl, many were destroyed when the French invaded in 1571. Others were destroyed during the World Wars.

I'm not exactly sure what Ahl (or perhaps the reviewer, mistakenly) is talking about here. From the review, I can't tell if it's Trent or just northern Italy in general, but I don't know of any French invasion in 1571. Anybody?

Huck

foolish said:
Very impressive bio. So, I guess the logic is that since he seems to have a great deal of knowledge about alchemy and hermeticism, he should also know more than other people about other subjects too.

Not necessarily, but the wikipedia-sentences ... "During this period McLean was able to devote some time to painting and he has produced (to 2011) over 1000 coloured emblems, from alchemical, mystical, astronomical and emblem books. He has also created a significant number of facsimile oil paintings of alchemical images from manuscripts." ... might have made you careful, that he also might know a few things about pictures, and if you took my advice to request simply the search engine to win an opinion you might have detected things like this ...

http://www.alchemywebsite.com/paintings/McLean08.html

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SZ6MC972HBA

As he has a sort of special intensity in matters, where he has an interest ... for instance, he just made a website for Hieronymus Bosch, or he started to become interested in Tarot cards, and has 1000's of decks in his possession ..., I just would assume, that he also has some intensive background to say something about Hieronymus Bosch.

From this ... my assumption (I don't know too much of Hieronymus Bosch) is just, that in this discussion Linda Harris probably has bad cards. I don't know Linda Harris and can't give any commentary on her work. I just can't imagine, that Adam McLean in his usual careful manner gives a heartbreaking critique, if he hasn't reason to do so (and if you read the Bosch web page you'll see, that indeed he had read a lot to this topic).
I express this my suspicion in my usual sloppy manner with "Linda Harris probably has bad cards in this discussion". With all respect to Linda Harris, whom I don't know and about whom I can't say anything ...

The two Bosch pictures, which remind Tarot cards, are well known. You're not the first, who detected them.

foolish

Ross G Caldwell said:
That seems to about sum up the quality of Harris' argument.

Sounds like you've taken a sinlge quote (out of context), and because you can find some arguments against its logic, you feel priviledged to dismiss the rest of Harris' entire book and all its other points.

Do you really believe this is a justified way of coming up with a rational review of someone's work? (I've shown flaws in some of Vitali's interpretations, for example. Does that mean his entire thesis is incorrect?)

The bottom line here is that, just because you can find someone with "authority" who expresses an opinion on some matter, it does not negate others from expressing other opinions which may be just as valid. We see this in law, where two sides present "expert witnesses" who express opposing opinions. This is all it is - opinions. Let's be careful we don't jump to the conclusion that we have arived at the "truth" simply because we would like to believe our own expert witness. We might actually miss some interesting and valid information that way.

Bernice

Whatever Ms Harris does or doesn't say in her book, can we know how it relates to the Renaissance Canon article?

Bee

foolish

Huck said:
As he has a sort of special intensity in matters, where he has an interest ... for instance, he just made a website for Hieronymus Bosch, or he started to become interested in Tarot cards, and has 1000's of decks in his possession ..., I just would assume, that he also has some intensive background to say something about Hieronymus Bosch.

From this ... my assumption (I don't know too much of Hieronymus Bosch) is just, that in this discussion Linda Harris probably has bad cards. I don't know Linda Harris and can't give any commentary on her work. I just can't imagine, that Adam McLean in his usual careful manner gives a heartbreaking critique, if he hasn't reason to do so (and if you read the Bosch web page you'll see, that indeed he had read a lot to this topic).
I express this my suspicion in my usual sloppy manner with "Linda Harris probably has bad cards in this discussion". With all respect to Linda Harris, whom I don't know and about whom I can't say anything ...

Since you admit you are not familiar with Harris' work, this doesn't really help us much, other than the fact that you're willing to go along with someone else's opinion instead of formulating your own by checking out the actual work being presented.

The two Bosch pictures, which remind Tarot cards, are well known. You're not the first, who detected them.

I never presumed to be the first to present these images. However, I was trying to make the point that, IF Bosch really did present dualistic/Cathar themes in his paintings, as Harris suggests, then the similar images in the tarot could also be presenting similar ideology.

foolish

Bernice said:
Whatever Ms Harris does or doesn't say in her book, can we know how it relates to the Renaissance Canon article?

Sure. A quote from the article says that the Renaissance artists "expressed political, historical and familiar ideology." I presented this as an example of how one artist might have expressed his own ideology, which in this case was different from the mainstream.

Bernice

Extract:
The lecture scanned art from the entire country of Italy and demonstrated the wide variety of art during the Renaissance period. Banners, tarot cards and frescos were a few of the many mediums artists used for their paintings. "[They] expressed political, historical and familiar ideology," Ahl said. "Paintings were instruments of leisure, pleasure and wit."

This confirms the variations in the trump images that we are already aware of. But it would be nice to know who these artists were and perhaps more useful to know their specific location (maybe some areas were more socially 'witty' than others). But lost in the mists I suppose.

Bee