Fire Tarot

[Hedera]

Right, that took a bit longer than I intended it to; the deck did arrive on Saturday, but I've been busy with other things.

I managed to type some stuff up on my Alphasmart though, and I'm posting the first bit here: second part will follow soon, hopefully with a picture or two as well.

***

The deck is the usual Lo Scarabeo size, although it seems a tad more slippery than their other decks; it’s not the industrial plastic finish of US Games though, I think it will wear a bit with use and become more pleasant.

The box is different from what I’m used to with Lo Scarabeo; the ingenious way of folding the bottom (making it sturdy, keeping it from interfering with the cards but also making it difficult to flatten for storage) is gone, instead the flap is simply glued shut.
It could be they changed methods; while I have bought other LS decks recently, none of those were very recent publications.

The flat, bright orange borders contrast well with the mostly dark, often bluish or grey cards (with splashes of fire, of course), but together with the backs, which are black with a yellow phoenix and a bright red border, the effect is a bit less harmonious than I’d like.
Not horrible, but it draws more attention to itself than necessary, taking away from the images themselves, which are less contrast-y. I think I would have preferred a more subtle border-back combination.

Anyway, on to the deck itself!
I really like it a lot. The art is quite good, although some of the figures have an oddly smooth look to them; it makes me suspect that some kind of CGI was used. But if it has, it was done a lot more subtly than in, say, the Pictorial Key - and there is a painterly quality to the images as well.

Composition of the images is lovely, and they have a glow and vitality that is really wonderful. Oddly, it feels like quite a dark (literally) and soft deck; not nearly as bright and harsh as what one might expect in a Fire deck. A lot of the cards are really rather calm and gentle in tone.
The cards are for the most part RWS-based in meaning, but not in image; it feels like a very valid and cohesive deck.

Artistically, I dont' think there are any clunkers; all the cards are beautiful to look at.

***

To be continued!

 

[Le Fanu]

*waiting for next installment*

Glad you like it. I'm trying not to ponder on the possibility of CGI images. I really don't think they are. There's a painterly smoothness about them. Can you specify any cards which you think might be CGI?

I also find - after a few days with this deck looking hard and thinking about the images - very little that is RWS about it. LOL. That's why I find your impressions interesting. I actually find it quite a difficult deck to be honest (so far). One of those decks where you look at the images, read the LWB, find that the image and explanation really don't match up and have to go off on your own for a meaning anyway!

But the cards themselves are rich in interpretation material and story telling.

Please, post more thoughts!

 

[Hedera]

*waiting for next installment*

Glad you like it. I'm trying not to ponder on the possibility of CGI images. I really don't think they are. There's a painterly smoothness about them. Can you specify any cards which you think might be CGI?

Eh, all of them?
It's mostly in the human figures, like the 8 of Pentacles, the Chariot, and the one with Shiva dancing.

There's just a smoothness and sameness about the bodies that feels very artificial.
Edit: I guess what you see as 'painterly smoothness' is what I see as 'computer-graphic smoothness'!

I actually thought it was common knowledge that the deck was computer-generated; I read it somewhere, but I guess not here!

I also find - after a few days with this deck looking hard and thinking about the images - very little that is RWS about it. LOL. That's why I find your impressions interesting. I actually find it quite a difficult deck to be honest (so far). One of those decks where you look at the images, read the LWB, find that the image and explanation really don't match up and have to go off on your own for a meaning anyway!

I've been through over half of the majors so far (taking my time, writing long impressions of each card, and ignoring the LWB for the moment), and even when I go in thinking 'well, this one is very un-RWS', I usually end up in a place that is very near RWS in meaning!
Not a complete overlap, and maybe a fifth or so of the cards really are very different, but it still feels to me like a fresh interpretation of RWS meanings - a bit in the way that say, Bohemian Gothic or World Spirit did.

I haven't written about the minors yet, but I have looked through them attentively two or three times, and the same thing applies there I think.

Not for all of the cards, of course - and, like I said, I'm ignoring the LWB so the makers might well have had something in mind that is completely different than what I'm coming up with.

 

[Eyebright]

Good to see people talking about this deck still!
I'm intrigued by it, but haven't yet had chance to study it properly. My plan is in the next few weeks to start a serious study of each card. I want to research the myths and characters in each card to add depth to reading with this deck, as opposed to purely reading it intuitively, and to see just how close or not it is to traditional tarot meanings. I think I will probably start a study group here in the forums to post what I have researched. I'm very excited by this prospect. I've been wanting to get my teeth into this deck for a while and this thread has given me the final motivational push to get the ball rolling!

Thanks guys!!!

 

[Chiriku]

Le Fanu does it again

I have not been back on this board longer than a few hours and already, he has sold me on a deck I had heretofore never given a moment's thought to.

I'm about to click "Buy Now."

Just one concern: Hedera, you say you'd read that the artwork was done in part by computers. I strongly dislike any hint of computer-generated "smoothness;" it disturbs me. It is no slight against the many highly adept artists--such as ciro--who use computers masterfully... it's just my own neurosis.

I really hope I don't sense any artistic contributions from computers in this deck.

 

[Lee]

I have not been back on this board longer than a few hours and already, he has sold me on a deck I had heretofore never given a moment's thought to.

Me too. I clicked "Buy Now" earlier today, after reading this thread and Le Fanu's comments elsewhere. It looks like an interesting deck with a nice masculine energy, and I love the art style. I frankly don't have the time or mental energy to do a lot of studying, so I'm hoping that the images themselves, plus whatever's in the LWB, are enough to make it readable.

 

[Chiriku]

Me too. I clicked "Buy Now" earlier today, after reading this thread and Le Fanu's comments elsewhere. It looks like an interesting deck with a nice masculine energy, and I love the art style. I frankly don't have the time or mental energy to do a lot of studying, so I'm hoping that the images themselves, plus whatever's in the LWB, are enough to make it readable.

Agreed, with all of it.

There are plenty of decks with very lunar, watery themes, even if they are not explicitly couched as such, so it's encouraging for this Leo to see the emphasis on fire. I also love the opportunity to see what a creator does with a traditionally masculine-associated element when applied to many watery female Tarot archetypes. I believe all genders tap into each element in their own way and will be interested to see, for instance, how a High Priestess, a Moon, or a Cups suit will be reimagined in terms of solar energy.

But that's with the same caveat our enabler articulated (his caveats are often my own): that the focus on fire not preclude the much-needed incorporation of other elemental influences. The 4-element system of Western estorica, even if it is somewhat limited in scope and cultural reach, still resonates with me, and no matter what deck or system I am using at the moment, I still instinctively read with an eye to the balance of elements in a spread.

Now I'm just wondering if we can send Le Fanu the bill for every deck we've purchased on his recommendation...

 

[Eyebright]

I think that you will be fine to read with the deck straight out of the box, it's just that there is a myth, or legend, folk story, history etc attached to most of the cards. I just want to research all of this to enhance my readings with the deck, and to try and appreciate better what the artist was trying to get across

 

[HOLMES]

i have this deck

I brought it based on the amazon scans which shows a native looking person on the card so i thought it was a kind of elemental native deck.
i was wrong as they go through all kinds of spiritual/natives things some you know like elijah being pulled up by fire into the heavens. the creators could of gone the easy route like the piller of fire that guided moses or the piller that destoryed sodom.
instead they went for the broad general approach and i must say i had to look at the little white book to get some of the reference.
and the main reason is the queen of swords card.
at first i thought it was an aztec mother about to sacfrice her young child to the fire.. but then the aztec only sacfriced their sacfrice on the alter.
so looking at the little book i was surpised to see it was issis purifying the baby so it can have immortality.
of the four decks i got this week it was my least favourite but as i shuffled it and looked at the little white book i realized that it has more hidden meaning behind it.

it does bear some more looking upon,, i found the devil card to be beautiful as well and not like the chains in other devil card. but i thought to myself as i looked upon it ,, even the devil can cry.

most of your modern tarot decks has a theme mixing them together like the vampires, or same motiff like the pictorial key to the tarot.
and that isnt readily apparent at least for me as i first thought to myself sigh i best log on and say that it is a throwback to the earlier ls tarots where they totally changed some of the cards.
but now i am thinking that it can be a good addition once it is studied to know the meanings behinds the images like the lovers card i liked as well.
i think for some the most confusion will come from the minors cards especialy those that are used to the waite regular symbolism.
whatever the case due to it being a broad spectum of images across the arcanas that it isn't as easy as say the tarot of the elves to put into story format.
but it is a beutiful deck at least in my view.

 

[Chiriku]

I think that you will be fine to read with the deck straight out of the box, it's just that there is a myth, or legend, folk story, history etc attached to most of the cards.

Thanks for that, Eyebright. I seem to be having the opposite reaction to yours, however!

Here are my thoughts on the deck after going through it card by card, in order, on three different nights over the past week since it arrived.

1. My first big problem: the deck's system, IMO, is not consistently thought-out, or if it is, it is not sufficiently explained. I am a system-based person who values internal consistency, and I like to know which system--Golden Dawn, Etteila, etc--a deck creator has adopted or, if s/he has created a system, a logical explanation of the latter. I do not know how the creator(s) of the Fire Tarot arrived at their meanings for the Minors. Was it some numerological system and if so, what? I also sense a fair bit of RWS sprinkled into the meanings of the Minors printed in the LWB, but these are often dissonant with the corresponding image. And then there are some cards that are just outright RWS-based, like the 3 of Swords, with a picture of a young woman stabbed through the heart, and others with no connection, even in the LWB description, such as the Four of Pentacles, wherein a Germanic giant emerges from a crack in the earth, with the LWB stating, "The line between good and evil is sometimes very thin."

This is all more bothersome than if the creators had just chucked RWS altogether to begin with and come up with a brand new system.

2. My second big problem: it bothers me when Minors have suit names but when the card images do not reflect the suit/symbol. If something is called Pentacles, I like to see something Pentacle-ish on the card---either a coin or a disc or a Frisbee or a china plate, but something! And I don't even require there to be the same number of suit symbol on the card as the number of the card (e.g. 6 china dishes on the 6 of Pents). I just like to see *a* pentacle somewhere. In the Fire Tarot, you will see exactly one card with Chalices in the suit of Chalices, and to me that is somewhat pointless. Why name it Chalices, then? How about the suit of "Blue Fire" or "Emotion" or "Heart" or something?


3. My third big problem which is related to #1: there appears to be little rhyme or reason as to why certain myths/characters ended up in a given suit and others in another suit. We are given one-sentence explanations of the four suits, but to be honest, most of the myths, being fire-related, could have ended up in any of the three other suits besides the one they appear in. The Minors are my favorite part to work with in a tarot deck, and it is discombobulating to not be able to fully differentiate the suits and their constituent cards from a conceptual standpoint.

4. Given the fact that the deck does not hew to a well-known tarot system, I believe it does require some study, even if merely memorizing the LWB meanings, in order to be usable as a reading deck. I understand that some people read solely from image interpretation, and maybe those people will do well with the deck out of the box, but for those of us who like a blended approach of set meaning and image interpretation, we really need the insight, scant as it is, of the LWB.

5. I would prefer for the courts to be consistent across suits. Instead, the Knave of Chalices is a large Star of David symbol, whereas the Knave of Pentacles is an actual knave (young person) with a sword. (Which brings up the other nuisance of why there is a sword but not a pentacle pictured on the Knave of Pents. Oh well).

6. The artist, Franco Rivolli, is extremely adept in some respects like on the painterly Four of Chalices highlighted by LeFanu or on the close-up 3/4-view portrait of the 7 of Swords, and yet, oddly, less skillful in other regards. For instance, I don't at all like the way he renders men's bare chests and abdomens; they look almost arthropod-like. I believe his forte is night skies, landscapes, and portraits of humans from the neck up. And to that end, the cards he does well are some of the best of their kind. e.g. The RWS-ish Two of Chalices is one of the most wonderfully evocative I've seen, with a haunting night sky, moon and deer and tree silhouettes added to the usual image of a pair of lovers.

7. Some of the images are disturbingly rendered to me. The face/expression of the New Guinean woman on the 7 of Wands is frightful; I want to draw eyelids onto her bulging/terrified eyeballs to lessen the terrifying effect the image has on *me!* The face of the figure being carried by the swan on the 5 of Swords recalls that of the doll Chucky from the CHILD's PLAY horror movie franchise. Sorry if that comparison disturbs you, but the card is disturbing to me. There are a few others.

8. I am not a fan of the Strength card, which, as a Leo, is usually one of the cornerstone cards I look to in a deck. In general, I am not wedded to traditional imagery; in fact, to the contrary, I am often impressed and pleased with images that illustrate a common meaning with a fresh depiction. However, Strength is one of the few cards I really like to see include traditional imagery: a human interacting with a large or fearsome animal of some type (my preference is for the female-with-lion version but many variations on this theme are clever without deviating from the basic formula).

In the Fire Tarot, Strength features the young Roman, Mucius Scaevola, thrusting his fingers into the fire. I not only miss the iconic depiction of a wild animal, but I find the image of strength here to be too consonant with the running narrative of Western society: we have a brawny, youthful man wearing a soldier's armor...yes, of course that is strength of a kind, a well-trodden kind, but it's not what I look for in a Strength tarot card.

But, with all of those criticisms aired...I am starting to feel more comfortable with the deck now that I've read the LWB descriptions three times on three separate occasions. I'm starting to recall the LWB myth explanations for some of the cards just by looking at them. And there is no denying that there are some very appealing things about the deck: namely, a consistent pan-globalism that features characters and myths from every corner of the world except the Arctic/far north; a consistent, classic timelessness (all of the figures appear to come from eras past within their respective cultures); and overall high quality artwork without a hint of computer-manipulation.

Do these good points mean I can successfully read with this deck? Well, we shall see.

I suspect this is the sort of deck that lends itself better to self-analysis than to predictive readings for others. I will report back on that score.