Variants of Golden Dawn attributions by the Aurora Aurea

Barleywine

The CMY theory has been around for awhile. (The theoretical basis for the GD's "flashing colors" are explained correctly by the concept of "visual complements" in CMY theory. The RYB "flashing colors" are based on so-called "mixing complements" and are a crude approximation.) Somewhat surprisingly, CMY theory is derived from the RGB (red/green/blue) additive color theory for light.

While magenta inks have been around for quite some time, only relatively recently have non-fading magenta pigments been developed for use in painting (the quinacridones). The Wendrichs used oil paints for the original GD Temple Tarot paintings. The colors in this deck are stunning!

My formal art education ended almost 50 years ago, so I'm well and truly out-of-date. The powerful colors of the deck (at least as well as can be seen from scans) are what make me want it. Any divergence in the symbolism I should be able to get my head around without much trouble (even if I wind up disagreeing with the reasoning).
 

Richard

I don't think there are any obvious symbols on the Kings and Princes (Knights) which indicate their divergence from what we understand to be the Book T attributions. Therefore it is no problem to interchange them in practical use. The rest of the cards are standard Book T. If you have any questions, Nicola Wendrich is good about responding to email.
 

Michael Sternbach

I have a book called "Colour and the Kabbalah" by Doreen and James Sturzaker that is pretty good. Out of print but you can find used copies inexpensively on Amazon which is where I got mine.

(James Sturzaker also wrote Kabbalistic Aphorisms which I like too)

Interesting. Does the book follow and elaborate on the Golden Dawn attributions?
 

Richard

The problem in using CMY is that Red and Blue are secondaries

Red = Magenta + Yellow
Blue = Cyan + Magenta

So the three innermost petals on the Rose would then consist of one primary, Y, and two secondaries, R and B. Alas, the elegant correspondence between the three Qabalistic elements and the three primary colors is lost. Magenta, a cool reddish floral color, is inappropriate for fire; and cyan is more of a sky color than a water color.
 

foolMoon

Is there a thread which has list of all the GD variant tarot decks?
If not, could we maybe try to list them in this thread? Or would it be better starting a new thread for it?
 

Zephyros

Is there a thread which has list of all the GD variant tarot decks?
If not, could we maybe try to list them in this thread? Or would it be better starting a new thread for it?

New thread
 

Barleywine

The problem in using CMY is that Red and Blue are secondaries

Red = Magenta + Yellow
Blue = Cyan + Magenta

So the three innermost petals on the Rose would then consist of one primary, Y, and two secondaries, R and B. Alas, the elegant correspondence between the three Qabalistic elements and the three primary colors is lost. Magenta, a cool reddish floral color, is inappropriate for fire; and cyan is more of a sky color than a water color.

My feelings precisely. For me, the RYB alignment has always been as you listed. Just because modern printing technology has created CYM for its own purposes doesn't mean we need to import it into our qabalistic model.