Taro by Ithell Colquhoun

I think the deck is considerably more about the colour scale than anything. Kaballah may be part of it, but I am pretty sure that the colour scheme is the main point.

Oink gave a link above. The Thoth deck is like this, the colours are very deliberately chosen and reflect the level & septhiroth on the Tree of life, the 'world' (suit) and in the case of Courts, the rank. Many cards, esp. the Majors, also have colours attributed to their ruling planet and element. It is deliberate and rather amazingly done.

Have a look at Duquette's book on the Thoth and there may be other places. I have read about it several times over the years, but my lousy memory isn't helping me at the moment.

Alta said:

I think the deck is considerably more about the colour scale than anything. Kaballah may be part of it, but I am pretty sure that the colour scheme is the main point.

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I agree, absolutely. Actually in the Ithell Colquhoun Tarot I can't see much more than the colors to work with at all. Well, the names of the cards are very special too.

Probably it is just my lack of knowledge about kabbalah, but somehow I thought of the color scales as something genuinely kabbalistic too.

Thanks for the feedback to all. I just bought it as well as Magical Writings of Ithell Colquhoun by Steve Nichols, which includes I understand some lectures by her on tarot. Not sure about doing reading with this deck, meditation surely!

Please let us all know if it hopes to understand the deck !

I found a site with some images from the Taro Ithell Colquhoun:

http://www.alchemywebsite.com/tarot/art_tarot19.html

Gimme a break!

*Z*

Zezina said:

I found a site with some images from the Taro Ithell Colquhoun:

http://www.alchemywebsite.com/tarot/art_tarot19.html

Gimme a break!

*Z*

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That is the website of the man who published them, and where you can buy the deck.

And others he has published. All of astonishingly high quality.

Zezina said:

Gimme a break!

*Z*

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Yes, meditating over a lot of color splashes IS kind of hardcore. At least for me it turns out to be more difficult than I expected. I haven't yet bought the Steve Nichols book though. If it helps once I got it, I will post my experience here.

Looks like somebody beat Margarete Petersen into making 78 cards with blurs of color and calling it tarot.

Sorry, I am not in the de-enabling thread?!

K

Kissa said:

Looks like somebody beat Margarete Petersen into making 78 cards with blurs of color and calling it tarot.

K

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How enlightening... Thank you for sharing.

trzes said:

Yes, meditating over a lot of color splashes IS kind of hardcore. At least for me it turns out to be more difficult than I expected. I haven't yet bought the Steve Nichols book though. If it helps once I got it, I will post my experience here.

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I am looking forward to your thoughts on reading the Colquhoun after reading the book.

This thread led me to dig up my copy of the deck and take a look again. Glad I did.
This is one deck that is really an Art deck with a capital A. Holding the deck makes you feel like you have a little gallery of very fine reproductions in your hand.

I like that feeling. Colquhoun's work reminds me of Helen Frankenthaler's, a painter/printmaker whose work spanned over 50 years - basically the entire second half of the 20th century. She worked a lot with the canvas or print boards laid out flat and let the colors bleed and flow over each other. The deck notes indicate that the deck images were made by pouring paint onto horizontal paper and then swirling the colors and applying more marks after.

There _is_ structure in the deck, though it is both abstract and deliberately partially un-controlled. The aces all share the same basic plan - a pale ground bordered with dark dots more or less frames the color(s) corresponding to the Element for each suit. The Fool card has the same plan, but now the ground is dark and the border dots light. They also push deeper into the central area of the card. The central color of the Fool is the (nearly) same yellow as the Swords background color - representing Air.
To me all this sets up the Fool both as the 'Ground' of the Majors, just as the Aces form the Ground of the suit elements' properties, and as the specific Major card corresponding to Air.

All in all, it's a beautiful deck visually. I may never read with it, but looking at the cards and thinking about all the color and symbolic correspondences is rich and rewarding enough.

Correction and ETA: The deck comes with two cards printed front and back with notes that explain some of the color associations used in the deck, and the symbolic groupings of the cards. The notes are by Richard Shillitoe. Above I had ascribed the notes to Adam himself.