Bohemian Gothic ~ Bone Chapel

Ambrosia

Quote:

Originally Posted by Alisa13

When I first looked at the BG deck I was impressed by their beauty and it gave me the feeling that the images were real and now to find out some are . . .
mind boggling.
Unfortunately I wasn't able to get the book that goes with the cards - does it say anything about the how/where the images were created?
The Bone Chapel is like eternity - to see the bones of people created long ago, imagine if all the skulls could talk.
This just reinforces my belief that Karen and Alex are truly gifted artists, weaving the past, present and future together . . .

I dont have the book either so I dont know if its mentioned in there. Im sure Karen will read this and answer your question.

baba-prague

Thank-you Alisa - well, we're fortunate in living in a region with such an asonishing history.

The book does give some information about the elements that went into the cards, but not in the way that, for example, the Victorian Romantic companion book does. With the VR, we used named artists and I was able to get some information about nearly all of them. With the Bohemian Gothic, we mainly used Victorian photographs as the base - mostly old German postcard images - and there was no information about either the models or the original photographers. We did it that way in order to get a "look" that had a real Victorian Gothic feel. Although we did also use a lot of our own photos (I think I've said before that The Devil, for example, is nearly all made up of modern photos) the fact that our base images were authentically Victorian does help to stop the final images from looking modern.

Anyway, it means that there is no information about the original artists in the companion book - simply because none exists. I do talk a little about the source of some of the elements within the pictures.

I'll find some of the original postcard images to post.

baba-prague

Okay, I am back with some of the original photos we used. We spent quite a long time looking for interesting old photo-postcards and "cabinet" pictures. We had the good fortune to find one elderly man here who was selling off his collection which speeded up the search. We were also given permission to use the collection of a friend here, and because we'd accumulated a large collection of books for the VR sourcing we also found some photos there (VR uses engravings, but most of the books also had photographs).

Where we could not find a suitable photo we shot the images ourselves but to the pattern of a Victorian picture. The Devil is entirely photographed by us, but using the exact pattern of an amazing 19th century engraving. Strength also follows an engraving, but we redrew the face rather than photographing it.

One of these photos is in fact later than the others - maybe 1930s? - but it had the right look so we used it.

I wonder if you can spot which cards these were used in? (lol - I feel like I should be doing a competition).

Nightgarden

I'll try:

Man with hat-"9 of cups",
children girls-"Page of cups",
bicycle-must be the one in "2 of pentacles",
woman in torn blouse-not sure-"5 of swords"?
woman baby-"10 of cups"

Astraea Aurora

Quote:

Originally Posted by Nightgarden

I'll try:

Man with hat-"9 of cups",
children girls-"Page of cups",
bicycle-must be the one in "2 of pentacles",
woman in torn blouse-not sure-"5 of swords"?
woman baby-"10 of cups"

I second this

Interesting that I've never "seen" the woman's torn blouse in the 5 of swords. Makes me wonder what else I've missed ...

Astraea Aurora

baba-prague

Quote:

Originally Posted by Nightgarden

I'll try:

Man with hat-"9 of cups",
children girls-"Page of cups",
bicycle-must be the one in "2 of pentacles",
woman in torn blouse-not sure-"5 of swords"?
woman baby-"10 of cups"

YES! That's impressive. Well done.

Nightgarden

Thank you, Karen.

It's always interesting to see the original photos, which you/Alex use for the "Bohemian Gothic Tarot".
I saw some (but not these in your posting) at your life-journal and in the "BGT"-thread.

I'm not sure, that the blouse is torn in the picture of the "5 of swords" too.
Must take a look...

Alisa13

Thank you very much for posting the photos. It is totally fascinating how you meld the Victorian elements with your own inspiration - they were easy to match because you capture the feeling of the photo so well.
Please make more cool Tarot Decks!

Ambrosia

Quote:

Originally Posted by baba-prague

I'll find some of the original postcard images to post.

Thankyou for posting those pictures Karen, it is certainly very interesting to see how the cards change from the originals

Would it be possible for you to post any of your pics from the bone chapel at all?

baba-prague

Hi Ambrosia,

Yes, I'll try to post some Bone Chapel pictures. We went there on a freezing autumn day and it was very atmospheric - almost no-one else around.

Alisa - we are not really planning any more tarot decks I'm afraid. For all sorts of reasons but mainly that we found the Bohemian Gothic so exhausting and just feel we can't do another. Perhaps we might after a long break - who knows? - but it's more likely we don't do another at all. We are still working on the See of Logos oracle deck - which has now been in the works for years. But it's probable that that will be our last deck.