Whose 'vibes' do you sense in a deck- the artist or the 'creator'?

[earthair]

Following on from the thread where we're discussing most readable decks...people mention that Thoth has 'vibes', and more often than not, they seem to be getting the vibes of Crowley.
But personally I sense the artist most strongly, not the creator. So it wouldn't matter if the creator had a terrible history and personality as long as the art wasn't 'contaminated' for want of a better word. Just wondering what everyone else senses most?

 

[Grizabella]

People have lively imaginations. The mind is a powerful thing. I can feel "vibes" like chills, vibrations running down my arms, etc. just purely on the basis of thought. It's actual physical sensations that my body responds to, but they originate in my mind. I think we get what we look for many times.

 

[Annabelle]

I don't normally think in terms of getting "vibes" from objets d'art -- but I suppose the reaction I have to a tarot deck is 90% due to the art.

My reaction is to color, form, shape, shadow, symbolism, arrangement, and so forth; usually, I know nothing about a deck's artist personally, nor about it's creator.

Now, if the deck's system (i.e. if it follows the RWS format) is obvious, that too will affect my reaction. And if a deck's subject matter (say, steampunk fantasy) is something recognizable to me, then my reaction will also be colored by my feelings about the subject.

Anyway, I have no way of delinating or defining to what extent I'm sensing Crowley vs. Harris when I look at the Thoth deck, for instance. "They" are both there, in a sense, but that moment in which I'm reading the cards isn't about either of them.

 

[Padma]

I don't get vibes really, not physically, and quite frankly it is the art that makes me pick up on things - it either unlocks my intuition, or speaks to me some way, something like that. But in the end, I think mostly I am picking up on some indefinable spirit of tarot, as well as my own deeper hind-brain knowledge/intuition/memory/call-it-what-you-will!

 

[seedcake]

I've never thought about it. But the truth is, I get connected with the art and how it "pleases" my eyes (or other senses). So my first thought was to tell that with the artist. Now I'm not so sure. It can be different 'cause we're not always sure how the artist and the creator work together. From RWS deck, I don't get anything about Waite, it has not a "male" touch (it's not the best way to describe but I'll go with it). I get vibes of Pixie and that's very nice. And we know that their collaboration was not so tight, possibly.

I can't vote, to be honest

 

[violetdaisy]

I'll have to say the artist, decks that are hand drawn especially. When I can I do try to get decks that have a book with the creators thoughts so I can connect that way too.

 

[Achlys]

Or me it is definitely more the art than the creator. The art is what draws me to or repels me away from a deck.
To me, each deck has its own personality that is shown to me by bonding with and using the deck. That personality is really the only "vibes" I get consistently.

 

[Le Fanu]

Surely it's art for everyone? Even with Crowley, it's the art you respond to.

The difference is, the Thoth is very cerebral and you know that it was Crowley that "directed" each image very closely.

I think that nowadays, that non-artist name the comes with the deck doesn't work quite so closely or intensely. They're just a sort of book writer. I don't think they stipulate the artistic details quite so dominantly.

 

[Zephyros]

People have lively imaginations. The mind is a powerful thing. I can feel "vibes" like chills, vibrations running down my arms, etc. just purely on the basis of thought. It's actual physical sensations that my body responds to, but they originate in my mind. I think we get what we look for many times.

I tend to agree with this, especially in regards to the Thoth. I've found that most people who have these vibes about it and Crowley don't actually know much about either, and allow their imaginations to get the better of them. The actual truth is either much better, or much worse, depending on your perspective.

As for the question, I think it really depends. As Le Fanu said, even in the Thoth it is the art that draws you in, but in that case the art and its background are a tightly woven fabric and one can't be separated from the other. I guess those are the kinds of decks I like the most, ones in which the vision and the art are wedded well.

So I guess my answer would be creator.

 

[Nemia]

But what would the Thoth have looked like, had Crowley not met Harris with her very specific training and abilities (projective geometry), her talents and willingness to follow his ideas, yes to translate them congenially into visual language?

I agree, the first thing I see and react to is the "handwriting" of the artist, whether he works with oil or water colours or a computer.

The only deck I can think of where I felt the creator more strongly than the artist is the Lo Scarabeo. The concept of combining three tarot traditions and the way it is done dominates the deck - the weak, pretty, competent watercolor cartoons have no artistic power at all IMO and are far removed from any of the three traditions.

To make a deck that merges visually (and not only conceptuallY the wood cut style of the Marseilles, the theatre-inspired vaguely-medieval style of Smith with her varying lines and flat colors (as opposed to many artists whose colours vary much more than their lines - I think her treatment of lines is one of Smith's strong point) and the elegant, complicated, Art-Deco, geometrical, alchemical art of Harris - that's impossible. Or it would take a very good artist, steeped in the different traditions. So it seems they went for bland and pleasing. Which is okay because in this deck, the concept is really more important than the artistic hand.

In every other deck I know the art speaks first. Whether the golden miniatures of the Visconti, the woodcuts of the Marseille tradition, the detailed engravings of the Italian decks of the 19th, the lino of Light & Shadow and World Spirit, the water color lightness and dreamy colors of the Dreaming Way, the abstract-figurative Haindl or Petersen (where artist and creator are one), I always sense the art strongly.