firemaiden
I think when it comes to interpreting literature, or art, or tarot cards, all signs are game for interpretation, intended or not.
Honestly, I don't think there is such a thing as "reading too much" into a tarot card, ultimately the interesting thing is the act of reading, itself. As Tournier said, and I am fond of quoting, "il suffit de regarder une chose longtemps pour qu'elle devienne interressante" = it suffices to look at something a long time for it to become interesting". And as others (who?) have said, if you look deeply enough into something, you will see everything.
Reading cards is a little bit like scrying. Are we to tell the scry-er who sees images in the swirling steam in her tea cup that she is reading too much into the steam?
It's just steam for heaven's sake...
Yes, but she is scrying! The images are not coming out of the steam! They surge up in the steam through her seeing art...
So sure, the cards are just cards, the mitt is just a mitt, fine -- yet we give them their significance by how we read them at that moment. Today the mitt is leaping out as an interesting detail... one of many very odd aspects of this card, I might add!
It is also not at all required that what we interpret in a work have been consciously intended by its creator. After all, the art of interpretation is itself a creative act!
So in the six of cups, the artist need not have meant anything by the mitt, for us to be allowed to enjoy reading into it!
Honestly, I don't think there is such a thing as "reading too much" into a tarot card, ultimately the interesting thing is the act of reading, itself. As Tournier said, and I am fond of quoting, "il suffit de regarder une chose longtemps pour qu'elle devienne interressante" = it suffices to look at something a long time for it to become interesting". And as others (who?) have said, if you look deeply enough into something, you will see everything.
Reading cards is a little bit like scrying. Are we to tell the scry-er who sees images in the swirling steam in her tea cup that she is reading too much into the steam?
It's just steam for heaven's sake...
Yes, but she is scrying! The images are not coming out of the steam! They surge up in the steam through her seeing art...
So sure, the cards are just cards, the mitt is just a mitt, fine -- yet we give them their significance by how we read them at that moment. Today the mitt is leaping out as an interesting detail... one of many very odd aspects of this card, I might add!
It is also not at all required that what we interpret in a work have been consciously intended by its creator. After all, the art of interpretation is itself a creative act!
So in the six of cups, the artist need not have meant anything by the mitt, for us to be allowed to enjoy reading into it!