Lady_Cerridwen
I've chosen to do my research project / essay on the Waite-Smith deck with the question, "How did the illustrator Pamela Colman Smith approach the Waite-Smith deck and why was she so successful?" (This is still a working question, and may change).The obvious answer would be to say she was the first to produce a pictoral and allegorical Minor Arcana, but wondered what your personal opinion was on the deck, and why it became so famous and 'reliable'. If you were to examine other contemporary decks of PCS' time (Crowley's Thoth etc), who would you say was the most successful? This could be interpretted as to who was the most influencial for today's tarot decks.
Most seem to say it is a 'training deck' because of its rich pictoral symbolisms, and the student is apparently encouraged to move away to more abstract decks like the Thoth deck (just an example). Is that true? Is 'less 'imagery more for Tarot Reader? Can it be that all they have to look at is a few squiggles and hebrew letters to 'get something'?
I'm getting rather nervous about this essay, and this forum looked like the best source of information. Our university library doesn't have much on Tarot Art. It's not easy when you're trying to focus on the ART of tarot, but all you find are books on the art of using tarot (ARG!). If anyone could suggest a few books for this, that would be really thoughtful.
Thanks all!
Most seem to say it is a 'training deck' because of its rich pictoral symbolisms, and the student is apparently encouraged to move away to more abstract decks like the Thoth deck (just an example). Is that true? Is 'less 'imagery more for Tarot Reader? Can it be that all they have to look at is a few squiggles and hebrew letters to 'get something'?
I'm getting rather nervous about this essay, and this forum looked like the best source of information. Our university library doesn't have much on Tarot Art. It's not easy when you're trying to focus on the ART of tarot, but all you find are books on the art of using tarot (ARG!). If anyone could suggest a few books for this, that would be really thoughtful.
Thanks all!