Lines of TdM

cjxtypes

I very new to learning the TdM, and what I'm curious to know is all the lines. Vertical horizontal diagonal. . Is there something to this by design? Or is it just the style of art and drawing at that time period it depicts?

Thanks :)
Cindy
 

Abrac

I think all those lines were a way of filling out the images and giving them a more 3-D effect, the way an artist would using shading. All the old TdM decks were made from wood blocks so cutting lines might have been the best technology they had at the time. I've been looking at TdM decks a long time and I've never really noticed the lines before but there certainly are a lot of them. :laugh:
 

3ill.yazi

I also suspect that in old woodcuts you needed to do that for the integrity of the image. I'm not sure a wood carving of a simple outline would survive multiple pressings as well as one with these hash marks.
 

cjxtypes

Ok thanks. I think I had somewhere came across something about TdM and sacred geometry and wasn't sure if that played into it in any way. Not that I know anything at all about sacred geometry. . Lol. Just curious.
 

Richard

Wilfried Houdouin uses sacred geometry in his design of the Marseille Tarot, but I don't know if it applies to the hash marks. Here's his web site.
 

cjxtypes

Yes I seen that in another thread. Excited for that book to be published un English. Sounds fascinating.
 

Bertrand

I also suspect that in old woodcuts you needed to do that for the integrity of the image. I'm not sure a wood carving of a simple outline would survive multiple pressings as well as one with these hash marks.
isolated lines certainly do work, look at the frames (not on wasted molds like the Conver of course where everything fell apart) and note that when some lines are missing on older decks, it's more probably due to a failing inling than to a broken mold.
A single line would work because apart from a very small height where the line is isolated on the top of the mold, the wood is cut with a smooth slope that provides rigidity and durability.

Also note that it takes more time to cut a large area of white than making multiple lines (so it's in favor of not isolating lines), but it takes even more time to cut complex and precise interlacings, not hatchings but the kind of things you find in the Épées and Bâtons numeral cards - when it's properly done, some engravers chose to make it more "freely" or lazily, on this specific point this is one of the rare occurrence where my favourite old deck is not a reference, though some people argue this was done on purpose (but the same people believe any card details such as bad inking or wrinkle to be done on purpose).

Bertrand
 

Placebo Scotsman

After working with a couple of facsimile TDM's I am convinced the the engravers were simply compensating for the inadequacies inherit in the woodblock printing process by carving redundant lines.

If something like 10 to 20 per cent of the lines failed to take properly there would still be enough to convey the basic image
 

alanemeriel

Wilfried Houdouin uses sacred geometry in his design of the Marseille Tarot, but I don't know if it applies to the hash marks. Here's his web site.

i have his book and it's really interesting, but it's not easy to read.
 

Yves Le Marseillais

Wilfried HOUDOUIN book in Brazilian language now

i have his book and it's really interesting, but it's not easy to read.

Hello Alane,

Do you have his Brazilian edition in your language (his first other language translation) ?

Yves