Foundation of the Empress type

[DianeOD]

Gee.

I suppose its not that I object, but I've never needed to consider the images as mere illustrations, because from the first, I've known they weren't.

I mean, the reason I first became interested in them, was that I saw exactly the *astronomical* characters being represented. They were entirely familiar, because used as literary 'types' for so many millennia in the eastern world, and earlier in western Christianity.

I really liked the skill with which the component stars for each star-figure in the Charles VI cards had been 'named' so precisely by the figure's devices, too.

For me, this argument for-or-against the images being *about* rather than *of* something is like saying that - oh.. what's a medieval example ...- o.k. like if I pointed to a picture and said to a Buddhist, "this is a statue of Saint Sebastian" and then had to argue why it couldn't better just be called a man being executed by arrow-shots.

Doesn't matter how many bits of text are produced, proving that lots of people were shot with arrows .. if you know what the image refers to because its entirely familiar - then you do.

it all comes back to historical continuity, and the way that continuity *creates* context for artefacts created in specific places and times.

At the end of the 13thC (or end of the 14th, if you prefer), the normal way to reach an image was in terms of what it signified; then individual signifiers were "read" for reference to specific passages of well-known texts.

So - what was 'seen' in these images by late medieval Christians?

To say when they saw a fool, they 'saw a fool' - and no more - is anachronistic to that period, in my view.

I've written up part of the section where I analysed the Fool image. Its roughly half the original material, but I felt the rest would be irrelevant for western audiences chiefly interested in cards, not the ways by which the eastern *astronomical* lore reached the west.

I'll go and look at your threads, jmd.

Where we agree, I'll be happy to say so.

 

[DianeOD]

Your threads

Yes - the Iraqi ones are mainly spot on.

Love the image of the figure in the chariot. Can't see whether male or female, but I'd say no doubt it represents the ruler of (northern) Heaven. Have you read the variations on the description of the heaven-chariot: of Hera, Ishtar etc.?

I have another very similar image to that used for our Ursae - a mosaic. Certainly close to some cards' versions - but I think here imitates a Palmyrean style, and applies it to the 'chariot of the sun', which it is not in the older system, nor in teh Charles VI cards. There, ursa major/the ursae.

Dam... really like that chariot..

I say, wouldn't an "ivory" tarot be lovely. I have heaps of appropriate examples for the principal 17. I shared them all with Ltarot members for a few months, but took them down about a year ago. Most still on my hard drive somewhere.

Now really must step back for a while. Too many posts showing my name last on them. (blush scarlet.)

D.

 

[baba-prague]

IFor me, this argument for-or-against the images being *about* rather than *of* something is like saying that - oh.. what's a medieval example ...- o.k. like if I pointed to a picture and said to a Buddhist, "this is a statue of Saint Sebastian" and then had to argue why it couldn't better just be called a man being executed by arrow-shots.

But the way that Saint Sebastian is depicted is both very distinctive and, on the whole, very conventionalised and consistent - it's easy to recognise and we can also, easily, distinguish it from other images of - in theory - people being shot with arrows. Or from other depictions of saints for that matter. Plus if I was trying to back up my argument with the hypothetical Buddhist I could show numerous examples of images clearly labelled "Saint Sebastian".

What we are talking about here though, seems to be images that are much less distinctive OR consistent, and you seem to take some of them as single pieces from series that would imply - when taken as a whole - that they are actually something other than what you are asserting (we've dealt with these in other threads). This gives cause for questioning, if nothing else. All this makes your argument a great deal less clear cut than the analogy you give.

I would personally rather like to think that the early cards derived from Star atlas depictions - I have no prejudices against this. But so far I think more rigorous proof is needed. If you have more evidence it would be well received here I think.

 

[baba-prague]

Just as a postscript, here is a challenge

One of the images in the cards that is always hard to explain is, of course, the Hanged Man. Yes, it may be a depiction of a traitor and it may well refer to Judas. However, I think we all acknowledge that it's hard to find many contemporary (to the early cards) images of a man hanging upside down in the tarot style and the image is still a bit of a conundrum.

Is there a clear example of this in Star depictions? If so, I for one would take this theory a good deal more seriously.

 

[Debra]

What we are talking about here though, seems to be images that are much less distinctive OR consistent...

And in a unusual format: as same-size cards, rather than leaves in a book or murals on a wall or mosaics on a floor.

I am curious why, if they are star maps intended as memory aides, they are not labeled, nor are the constellations depicted directly.

 

[DianeOD]

Hanging Man

Short answer:
because the time when Scorpius hangs inverted marks the time of the year when (proverbially) endeavours become difficult.

Can't actually remember whether I ever put an edited version of the section ion Scorpius/Suspended Gold on the web.

- sounds from your remarks as though maybe I(?) did, or you've read about the habitual 'inversion' of the traitor-type (actually as well as metaphorically).

Part of the difficulty - to return to the Buddhist analogy - is that the west comes so late to the habit of matching actions and ideas of the temporal world to the pattern of what was thought the divine template (sort of thing) manifest in the heavens. We just don't have such an element in western popular culture, and we think of astronomy as a small and specialised activity.

Wasn't so earlier.

Simply haven't time, just now, to edit up new sections of my ms. Takes nearly as long as writing it in the first place , and as a matter of form I feel any new editing up should ensure that others' parallel discoveries since then should be noted. Checking journals and tarot-group posts to do that properly, takes even *more* time.

But since you are interested in the 'Suspended Gold'/Antar[es] imagery, I will try to provide something, if you like. Perhaps easiest if I just send the whole slab from my original ms by personal email to those wanting it?

Since it will be cut from within the whole thing, I guess some references to books and previous discussion won't be immediately clear, tho'

 

[baba-prague]

- sounds from your remarks as though maybe I(?) did, or you've read about the habitual 'inversion' of the traitor-type (actually as well as metaphorically).

It's been discussed here many times over several years but no, I haven't seen anything you've posted on this. I would very much like to see actual imagery that corresponds to the Hanged Man - this would be most interesting and very convincing.

Rather than emailing it, it might be better to show it here so that it's shared - I don't think it needs, initially, to be anything very extensive, just one or two images with references would be great.

 

[baba-prague]

Part of the difficulty - to return to the Buddhist analogy - is that the west comes so late to the habit of matching actions and ideas of the temporal world to the pattern of what was thought the divine template (sort of thing) manifest in the heavens. We just don't have such an element in western popular culture, and we think of astronomy as a small and specialised activity.

It depends what you mean by "late". Certainly once the ideas of Hermeticism were popularised this became a fairly widespread concept in the West and remained so for some centuries.

 

[DianeOD]

imagery of the inverted

A fair amount of the western accounts and imagery of persons hanged suspended - tho' all, I think, later than cards are known - was posted some time ago by contributers to Ltarot.

Apart from those later figures, and the earlier imagery in (mainly Cistercian) western monastic works, the clearest imagery is verbal, not pictorial.

To appreciate it as forming a consistent and very long enduring habit, and its connection to Scorpius, one has to consider a fairly long and broad range of such verbal imagery.

It comes back to that distinction mentioned earlier; these are not images 'of' the hanged man, but images 'about' the perceived character of that particular astronomical "template-type", which is then used to indicate the underlying nature of some specific litrary or historical personage.

One very late and brief reference in the west to the eastern popular lore is where Cardan says that 'watery signs, but especially Scorpio, make traitors.' Of course his is an astrological usage, which was not the norm.

The Charles VI figure is actually depicting the more ancient form of the Scorpion, where Libra forms the scorpion's claws, and part of Saggitarius the 'corner' in which it lies. The whole figure is designed to literally represent the 5 individual manazil of which that greater, and more ancient, Scorpius was formed.

Anyway, short answer is that visual representations are less common, less detailed and generally less appropriate as a method for explaining the way the imagery was developed and employed.

So the offer stands, if anyone wants to read the whole analysis. I compare the Charles VI card with a couple of seemingly-wide variants, just to illustrate their consistency is not to each other, but to the underlying subject.

 

[baba-prague]

So there are no star constellation depictions that you know of that show anything like The Hanged Man? Or even that have an obvious link to the traditional imagery of that card? (I am not interested in the discussions on TarotL on traitors etc, thanks. I think most people here are fully conversant with all that).

I think a few verbal references to traitors may not be quite the compelling evidence I was hoping for. Oh well, thanks anyway.