Arcus Arcanum deck

Apollonia

I love mine!

I've had this deck for maybe two months now, and I am enjoying it immensely and getting good readings from it. What I like most about it:
1) The Aces are gorgeous, with a hand formed from the element grasping the suit symbol, and very realistically-depicted animals. I've seen a lot of boring Aces in other decks, but these have a great deal of energy and movement.
2) The background on almost every card is fully detailed, and the outdoor scenes seem to stretch all the way to the horizon.
3) The artist can draw a horse. Looking at the Knights, if you've ever been on a horse, you almost feel the gait and pace they're going at. Beautiful.

I agree that it's very cartoonish, which I find lighthearted and enjoy as a change from my more serious decks. And some of the people do look alike, but that doesn't really bother me. Some people in my life look alike, too, and some are twins, and sometimes, as when six people are coming at you with clubs, it doesn't really matter what they look like. But I have found the expressions in some of the cards very interesting--like what's up with the couple in the Four of Disks? I don't think I have another card in my collection that says, "I've got mine," any better.
 

Flavio

I got this deck because I liked the comic book style art, it means to me, the characters appear more dynamic and full of energy even those who are only sitted, rich colours and interesting "camera angles", it gives me a sense of strenght. You can see the whole deck in this russian site.

I would immediatly think in this deck if someone started a thread called "what deck is good for a teenage boy?" but don't think only young people can get something from this deck.

The Majors are close to the RWS style, except the Lovers which is more like a Marseilles Lovers, strenght is 8 and Justice 11. The back is not reversible at least in the version I have.

Minor arcana is the trademark of this deck, each card has the alchemical symbol of the element and cards from 2 to 10, they tell us a shortstory, that is why many characters look the same, because they are the same all along the suit:

Pentacles: Plays with the "king's men came to pick up the taxes, the medieval way" theme. Pentacles and Cups share similarities for example in both suits card 10 shows a door surrounded by the suit tool, gives you the idea of accomplishment.

Swords:As this is medieval style comic, the story in the swords is the best told in the deck, a lady is kidnapped and her knight fights to rescue her, in the 10 of swords we see a knight wounded by the fight, the image is less dramatic than in RWS deck but equally effective.

Cups: We see different moments in the life of a young couple, parties, wedding and how they grow up together.

Wands: A couple with wands travels and find friends and foes on its way. Here the wands have nothing magical, they are just big pieces of wood used as a walking cane and more as a weapon.

Within the stories are included the traditional RWS meanings altough sometimes the patterns shown by the suit tool resemble the marseilles pips. The Aces are very appealling, they show a hand made by element of the suit holding the suit tool, on the Aces are also drawn the animal associated to that element except the cups that have a golden fish and a dove.

Now, how is it for reading? the art of the deck is very appealing to me so the readings are everything but boring because the design of the deck itself makes me think in comic book frames so I use this deck mostly for spreads with no positions (or no spreads!) just pull cards and tell a story, like the 4 doors spread (in the thread look for New2Tarot's post, there is a description of this spread). I've found me sometimes "connecting" cards because a symbol or a colour (rainbow, bushes, sky color, castle walls) is included in 2 or 3 cards and help me link them.

I hope this helped you, I'm aware this post is totally biased :D because I love this deck anyway I wish you got a better idea of how this deck is like.
 

Little Baron

It is good to have a balanced response. As I said, we all have different opionions about what is useful for us.

Thanks for sharing
LB
 

Chronata

Coatl said:
Some people in my life look alike, too, and some are twins, and sometimes, as when six people are coming at you with clubs, it doesn't really matter what they look like.
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This made me laugh out loud...very very hard!

Thanks for all the reviews of the deck...and thanks to Flavio for the site that shows them all.

I had never relly seen/heard of this deck before!

I was expecting, from many of the reviews here...that it was a cartoonish sort of deck...but the art is more sophisticated than that.

It does remind me of Prince Valiant comics...and those detailed Classics Illustrated comic books of the Silver Age.

They also remind me of a great old illustrated children's book about King Arthur that was published in the 1930's.

I really love these!

Must put them on my wish list!
 

Little Baron

They also remind me of the Tavaglione decks - Stella, for example.

LB
 

Flavio

LittleBuddha said:
They also remind me of the Tavaglione decks - Stella, for example.
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Oooh! I've never heard before about this artist but I just search about him in aeclectic.net, the Enoil Gavat and Tarot of the Stars look great but a little bit saturated with so many symbols and elaborated design. Decks like these would look great as movie or TV, prop. Thank you for sharing LB :)
 

Flavio

LittleBuddha said:
I think out of all of them, if you are interested in illustrated minors, the Stella is my favourite - even though I believe it is out of print now. This one reminds me the most of the AA.
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Thanks for the link, I took a glimpse at the cards, they seem too much saturated for me to read with them, anyway might be an interesting addition to a comic book style tarot decks.
 

TheOld

i finnaly look back at this deck and found it even more beautifull, the pictures are gorgeous and full of detail, i'll use it more for divination (even for the querent that come this afternoon).

Have fun !
 

weaver

Flavio, the link and deck explanations you provide are just terrific. Another deck for my growing wish list!

weaver
 
Nice surprise in the mail this morning. Osho-Zen! Gilded Tarot