"Real" Art or "Fake?"

JadoreHauteCouture

Well, there you go, JHC. I LOVE Vampires of the Eternal Night. It is very well thought out, for a start. But I don't think it IS all CGI actually. Corsi is a fine artist. And it is wonderfully otherworldly.

hehehe... i love your reply! :D i am really skeptical on CGI decks at the moment.... but who knows, maybe ill get that vampire deck again in the future :) it was pretty indeed... just didnt work well for my readings... thx for sharing your 2 cents :)
 

Chiriku

I forgot to address "real art" v. "fake art."

To me, art is effort and intention, so there's no such thing as "fake art" if the person doing it had a vision, as closrapexa described, and worked to execute it. I don't think the majority of CGI decks are "fake art;" I just don't like most of them.

Now, since you mentioned film, let's discuss one of my favorite topics, Star Wars. The original trilogy was hampered by problems, technical issues, studio interference and more. However, where special effects failed, story and character growth blossomed, as there was no other choice. Looking at many older movies one finds longer sentences and conversations, more in-depth character studies and really innovative camera work. Citizen Kane is one such example. On the other hand, the new prequel films sabotaged practically all the franchise stood for, degrading story arcs into colorful, crisp images that meant nothing, because there were no characters to care about. Those films are prime examples of CGI being used in lieu of any story or emotional connection.

Good analogy and example here.

IMO, digital artwork already has that built-in degree of "visual soullnesses" owing to its "not-quite-human" qualities that I described above. As such, the artist has to work double-hard to create and execute a viable "vision." Most, to my eyes and subconscious (which is the part of us that needs to be kickstarted when using tarot), do not succeed.

I didn't realize Place uses digital means to modify or assemble his art; I thought he did it all with traditional media. Well, add him to the short list of people whose digital art I like. Cold, though, and sterile...yes, it is certainly that. Coldly elegant.

And the Voyager indeed has "soul" because yes, there was a very cohesive and concerted vision behind it, with each image very carefully chosen and assembled (Wanless lives and breathes his finished tarot deck, too).


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PathWalker

As a trained artist my personal preference is obviously for hand-drawn-and-painted (or printed) images,

Now that is a really interesting statement, because most art students these days would be encouraged to experiment with many media before finding a 'stlye' (if indeed they stick to just one) and so there's no "obviously" about it as far as I can see? Each person here is going to express, as you are, their own predjudices as well as preferences :)


If 'art' is an expression of the artisit's vision, created at least in part by their need to communicate something, then it's all art - although you might say that some is better excecuted that others on a technical level. Sometimes the raw edges or naive style are part of their message, no?

So for me it comes down to "I like that art/vision/style" and "I don't like that one" and there's no particualr division in terms of technique used. It can be as much about colour, or image portrayed as media used.

Thank you for the topic though, interesting.
Pathwalker
 

Barleywine

Now that is a really interesting statement, because most art students these days would be encouraged to experiment with many media before finding a 'stlye' (if indeed they stick to just one) and so there's no "obviously" about it as far as I can see? Each person here is going to express, as you are, their own predjudices as well as preferences.

"These days" is the operative phrase here. I should have clarified that my artistic training occurred in the 1960s. No computers in sight.
 

PathWalker

"These days" is the operative phrase here. I should have clarified that my artistic training occurred in the 1960s. No computers in sight.

Well I assumed as much, although there were folks working in other media even then - including collage :)
 

Barleywine

Thanks for your interest. This thread is going where I hoped it would, away from demonizing this particular deck or that one, and toward a more general discussion of the "state of the art."

It may not be too much of an overstatement to say that virtually every work of art mass-produced for release into the commercial marketplace was a photo-reproduction of one kind or another at some stage in its existence. Some reproductions do a better job of accurately capturing what the artists have hanging in their studios or in galleries somewhere, and are therefore "truer" representations of the artists' vision. I'm thinking of my 1983 standard-size Thoth (the three-magi one), which is much "bluer and colder" than my more "brownish" 1970 large-format decks. Even though Weiser's stated intent was to produce a more faithful copy of the original paintings, I don't like the newer deck nearly as much.

My understanding - having never worked with publishers beyond receiving the occasional rejection slip for my fiction writing - is that deck creators (or at least those who retain the rights to their work and don't have the wherewithal to self-publish) receive a "proof" copy of the forthcoming deck to sign off on. I'd wager that a certain "this-is-the-best-we-can-do-with-current-technology" pragmatism enters the picture about the time the release date appears on the radar screen. Thus, the deck we hold in our hand may not be exactly what the artist intended, just "close enough" for commercial purposes. Just some food for thought; I'd love to hear from a deck creator about their experience in this regard, especially with the major players in tarot publishing.

ETA: Scratch that, not Weiser but U.S. Games/AG Muller by that time.
 

MikeTheAltarboy

As a trained artist my personal preference is obviously for hand-drawn-and-painted (or printed) images, but I've also worked quite a bit with collage and know that the constraints an artist works under in selecting and arranging images that cleave seamlessly to the intended "theme" of the project are every bit as rigorous as mentally formulating and projecting the images by hand onto paper. (In a visual universe as hemmed in by traditional symbolism as tarot, it might even be said that conjuring up images out of "thin air" is fundamentally just an exercise in "mental collage.") Many hard choices, compromises and trade-offs must certainly be made, but some truly compelling decks have resulted from the practice.

I'll start off with saying: There are some decks I like, and some whose art I dismiss out of hand. ;-) That's my taste.
But as far as "real art", etc:
It's worth considering that *most* decks in the past were *never* real art: at best, they were cuts or plates *based* on "real" art - traced or copied by a craftsman, not an artist. - at worst they were hacks. And some of those hacks I like anyway (See any standard american deck of playing cards, descended - poorly - from the ancient Rouen pattern, or the Tarot de Marseille). When Smith illustrated the deck for Waite - she did so (as I understand it) with ink and paint, and a craftsman transfered it to the cards with plates and lithography - her work was *traced* and printed, not printed directly.

I don't yet consider myself an artist, but I'm trying to become one. ;-) But one thing I have learned - either in the past or recently - is that most all artists copy. Either in the learning phase, or even in the production. Bach copied Vivaldi, then tinkered around. The renaissance artists used viewing grids to allow them to better trace what they saw. The trick *seems* to be how much the old image is "appropriated". As barlywine said, even whole-cloth creations are often mental collages that have been "traced" from the mind onto the paper.
Something else I've learned, is that while one will have one's own *taste*, negative *judgements* about someone else's work may well be a part of one's own self seeking to sabatage one's own potential to create. So - as out of charity to myself, when I say of my own my recent attempt, "Hah! Nice try. That's your attempt to draw? you suck" - I say in reply, "Your opinion doesn't matter." - so I'm trying to extend the same curtesy to others!

So, to answer your question, it seems to me that if you have 78 pieces of cardboard that are in some way labelled so you can identfy suit and rank, it's *legitimate* - at least to the extent that any deck ever has been. If you want "high art" gratia artis - don't like for it on a disposable medium.
 

cirom

Since my name has been referenced on several posts, I'd like to offer a personal perspective. NOT about my decks or any other specific decks, but about the general subject of CGI.

I do find it frustrating when I read how people dislike CGI produced tarot decks, with an all encompassing sweep of an entire genre. People will like or dislike any tarot deck and they are free to voice their opinions and tastes, but to dislike something because of the medium (they think) is used seems a very rigid criteria and to be honest suggests a misconception of the process involved. I can understand why certain works have given the media a bad rap, i.e. poorly Photoshopped images of your uncle Harry wearing a wizards costume pasted onto a photo of the local park and then titled "The Hermit" isn't going challenge lets say the more demanding members here. Equally the ease of applying a "artistic" filter to a photograph with the push of a button that anyone can do may suggest a similar ease to all aspects of the medium. And of course there are all those staring eyed Barbie looking 3D figures...But that is a layman's generalization based in part on examples of poorer execution and does not fairly consider that its a medium that people are still learning to use. (I'm embarrassed by my own earlier CGI work).

Nevertheless I for one don't approach my digital work to make it look like it was a "real" photo, or a "real" painting as an earlier post described. I produce it to be just a realistic "image" in its own right, just as I did in my earlier days with airbrush, paint brush and physical pencil, its merely my preferred tool at this point. Its also a tool that has been used to create an infinite variety of styles in the hands and minds of numerous creative people. I can't be bothered to do so at this particular moment, but I'm pretty sure that I could provide images (not mine) that you would be challenged to determine wether they had been produced using CGI or traditional media. But the real point is why should it matter so much anyway, why not judge the image for what it is, like or dislike it for what it is, not how you assume it was done, or how easy you assume it was to do, and as such categorize it as not "real" by some nebulous "arty" subjectivity. From cave paintings to CGI, art is about communicating a concept, a message, a story, an emotion. At least thats how I've approached it anyway, particularly regarding Tarot, and I believe I speak for other designers as well. You don't have to like it and I'm more than aware that many of you don't. Or it may not "touch" you, or it may lack any other number of qualities you need from a tarot deck. But such criteria will apply to any deck no matter how its produced. I feel its misleading to even describe CGI as being computer generated images, because in fact they are generated by humans...... using a computer. Just as you wouldn't describe a Da Vinci or Picasso as oil generated. They are vastly different styles using a common denominator of medium....
 

greatdane

It's not the cgi part that bothers me as much as when old artwork is just used for tarot by adding a coin in someone's hand or a sword. All I can think is....that's an old picture (sometimes an old masterpiece) that someone just digitally added a sword to. It's especially bad if I recognize the artwork, because that's all I think of. Like having the Mona Lisa as the Empress....it just doesn't work for me, no matter how well it may be done. I DO get why it works for others. The Silent Tarot is definitely collage and uses old pictures, but the way it's done works for me.
 

cirom

I can understand that....and can't help but agree with you actually. But thats more an "approach" than the fault of the medium. The medium in this case just makes it easier to do.