Pip Imagery

[Anathematically]

I know this is a very subjective topic, but I'm curious as to individual opinions on pip imagery.

Personally - and in a deck with ideas I'm toying with - I actually prefer patterned pip cards, rather than "traditional" illustrated cards. I feel that this adheres more to the numerological ideas behind the cards, which I find more plausible than ideas asserted by Eteilla, Mathers, the Golden Dawn and subsequently Waite. There are a lot of parallels, of course, but I think that generally, the ideas that Eteilla put forth are a bit... well, in some instances, far-fetched.

I'd love all your opinions on this matter, though. What is it about the pip illustrations that you like? Is it simple aesthetics, or perhaps that there's a story told through all the cards, as a whole?

Thanks!

 

[FearfulSymmetry]

Personally - and in a deck with ideas I'm toying with - I actually prefer patterned pip cards, rather than "traditional" illustrated cards. I feel that this adheres more to the numerological ideas behind the cards,

Hi

This is something I have struggled with a lot. I know what you mean about a lot of the illustrations being somewhat groundless. I have found a natural sort of flow to them, I think there is more of a connection than is obvious at first on the surface.

That being said, my solution to the problem has been to use what already exists in the tarot pattern, the numerology based a good part on the major arcana and the 4 elements.

Sometimes I wish I did just pips but doing the other sure is fun and feels meaningful - pips have been done. It is a cool place that isnt yet set in stone to put out some personal innovations.


Good luck with your progress!

Marie

 

[Emeraldgirl]

I like RWS style inllustrated pips but I agree sometimes people just seem to thorw a picture on the card without thinking of the traditions behind that card. I also use TdM style pips and everything in between (e.g. The Renaissance Tarot by Brian Williams) so for me it's not really a question of how the card is illustrated but what the illustration shows me.

 

[Sienna]

I actually learnt on the Marseilles deck, and then adopted the Rider Waite so I can look at it from both angles, I think with the un-Illustrated pips there is more room for free thinking and less rigidity, however with Illustrated you have the security of traditional meanings and the comfort of the almost tried and tested. I also read with the Art Nouveau and whilst that is Illustrated the images are not traditional and I sometimes free-flow on that, even though there are couples there is room for "original thought". So yes I think both styles have their advantages and disadvantages. I remember looking at a Marseilles Pip and being literally stumped for words as there is no guidance. You really need to know your meanings inside out. So all in all I am grateful to non-illustrated Pip deck because it gave me a very thorough grounding in the Tarot and I had to learn the hard way!

 

[FearfulSymmetry]

Whatever you think about the RWS illustrations or any other traditional meanings which wouldn't seem to have much to do with numerology, the truth is that some people do amazing readings with them! Its all personal preference I guess.

Marie

 

[Emily]

My first deck was a 1JJ Swiss back in the days when you could get no tarot books apart from one by Kaplan illustrated and for the 1JJ Swiss. I might just as well been looking at pieces of blank card - I tried hard with these cards and, as a teenager, came to the conclusion that although I'd been reading playing cards for years I would never make a tarot reader.

It was only years later when I saw an opened RWS in a bookshop that I felt a light go on inside of me. I was still very interested in learning how to read and the deck wasn't a fortune so I got it.

I realised then that I liked the RWS symbolism, I didn't stop with the RWS deck but its still the kind of symbolism I read best. I like illustrated cards that I can see the imagery and make sense of the details on the cards. I still can't read with Marseille or Soprafino decks but I do try to include numerology in my readings with the decks I use, which at the moment is the Tarot of the Old Path, which is again in the RWS tradition.

 

[Anathematically]

I suppose my biggest concern with the Rider-Waite tarot is that it's so very influenced by the Golden Dawn, and a lot of other people who were... well, some of me says that they weren't right. Or rather, that they took some undue liberties. Waite, indeed, was influenced by just about every one of his pre-cursors; he wasn't overly influenced by one person (though some may argue that Mathers was his most influential source), and this is obvious in his many attempts to "harmonize" or "marry" the many different interpretations into one global idea.

The imagery is... well, there are some cards in which the imagery - and, indeed, the interpretation put forth by Waite - are kind of... a stretch, I suppose. The on in particular I think of is the 6 of Swords. For whatever reason, Waite introduced the idea of "travel by WATER" into the meaning. I have no idea where the water came from; I've not been able to find any sort of base for that idea anywhere I've looked.

Things like that are what really put me off from the RW deck.

 

[Sophie]

The Golden Dawn members (and Waite) reinvented the Tarot - in their own way, they did what the Impressionists were doing in art at the same time... It was a fabulous adventure (especially when you get to Crowley ), but not the be-all-and-end-all of tarot - one very important part of it.

As for the 6 of Swords as journey-by-water - I must assume that the notion of mental harmony looked like a journey by water to Pixie Colman-Smith. She was an evocative artist, after all. I am not bothered by the imagery, I like it and take it as a starting point to explore "mental harmony" or the beauty of the mind...

 

[Moonbow]

I read with both illustrated and non-illustrated pips.

I never have connected well with the RWS deck because I dislike the artwork, and I feel that to connect well with an illustrated pip deck it's essential to connect with the art. I do use other RWS based decks such as the Druidcraft, World Spirit and Tarot of Prague. Much of my interpretation of the cards now comes through meditating on them so, again, liking the artwork is a must.

Pips that I call semi illustrated... like the Thoth, Tarot of the Spirit and Tarocchi Di Vetro I also like as they still allow personal interpretation and imagination to be used.

For me a picture card already has a story in it, which can be told in several ways thus allowing for some variation in meaning. But a pip with no picture allows for more variation, more imagination and therefore more intuition.

 

[jmd]

As Anathematically asks in the opening post about an idea being toyed with regarding 'patterned' pips and what it is about pip illustrations we like, I'll just stick to that - and probably make comments about the GD and others in other threads on the matter.

Personally, what I find appealing is first and foremost that the image depicts the implement it seeks to represent. If it is to have six swords, for example, then I prefer the dominant feature to be a drawing of six swords - even if stylised in some manner.

Secondly, I also want to be able to differentiate between suits easily. To have cups look like chalices, to have batons look like stickes, to have coins look like actual coins, and to have swords look like swords... so how does one differentiate instantly between swords and batons? Personally, I consider the Marseille-style incorporation of curved sword (scimitar) depiction a very clever and useful solution.

Thirdly, I prefer images to not have colours that suggest strongly one element above another. If I get a deck in which the swords are clearly representations of Water, or Air, or Earth, or Fire (and there are those who have views for each of these correlations), then I will probably not use it much at all - even if the rest of the deck suits my rather 'narrow' (according to some) tastes.

Fourthly, I prefer to not have the depictions of the pips presented in too geometrical a way. For example, where I personally the Spanish Esoterico deck falls flat (as well as in its strong suit-element correlation depictions) is in having a rather fixed a-la-Etteilla geometrical format. And formats generate more or the same...

Finally, I prefer the non-implement depictions to be floral ornamentation, rather than depicting either people, animals or buildings - though some exceptions, if used astutely, can be made.

That's it, I suppose, for my own personal reflections on this...

As for a deck one is creating, however, I would first and foremost suggest to create whatever impulse one is working with!