Did Pixie use a photocopy?

Desecrated

I'm reading through the visconti-sforza deck and I noticed that almost every card is mirror imaged in the RWS.

So I started wondering, what if pixie used copies made from the Pierpont-Morgan deck.
There wasn't much technology that could do that back in 1909 but one machine was the Rectigraph. It took a photo of a document and then flipped it over and printed it on a piece of paper. Mirror imaged.
They opened shop in new york 1906-1907.

In 1907, Alfred Stieglitz gave Smith an exhibition of paintings in New York at his Little Galleries of the Photo-Secession (also known as gallery 291), making Smith the first painter to have a show at what had been until then a gallery devoted exclusively to the photographic avant-garde.

Going through the major arcana:

The fool in RWS is most likely the fool from golden dawn deck, they look very similar and the VSD looks very different
RWS has magician holding the staff in his right, VSD has it in his left.
High priestess looks identical
The empress, RWS the shield on the right, VSD on the left.
The emperor - Very identical, staff and globe in the same hand.
Heirophant - identical
Justice - identical
The chariot- the stick is in the same hand but they are faced in different directions.
The lovers - VSD - Woman on the left. RWS Woman on the right
The devil - VSD left hand up. RWS - left hand down
The tower - VSD lightning from the right - RWS lightning from the left.
Temperance _ VSD Right hand high, left hand low - RWS, left hand high, right hand low.
Hermit looks identical
Strength VSD both lion and man is facing left - RWS both lion and woman is facing right.
Wheel of fortune - Identical, red figure on the left, blue on top. Same on both.
The hanged man- VSD hanging from his left foot, RWS hanging from his right.
Death - Two completely different cards, very hard to compare.
The star - facing in different directions.
The moon - the actual moons are in different directions
The sun - SVD kid turns to the right, RWS kid turns to the left
Judgment - Similar.
The world - very different cards.
 

gregory

I really don't think an artist of her quality would even have wanted to, never mind actually done so. Using what she had SEEN is a whole different thing.
 

Zephyros

I really don't think an artist of her quality would even have wanted to, never mind actually done so. Using what she had SEEN is a whole different thing.

Hard to tell. She did say, in the only letter that mentions the deck, that she was extremely pressed for time. Some of her other works seem to show use of templates such as figures or faces. Not something I can prove, but an artist that took comissions and worked for industry could draw over stencils. If you have the Sakki-Sakki companion book, there's a whole chapter on the library of shapes and elements the artist used, a throwback from her industrial graphic art days.

While the work is certainly large and sweeping, I don't know how important it was to her, or how much she saw it as a life-changing artistic endeavor. On the contrary, the deck does betray speed and lack of care, at times, most certainly compared to some of her other works in which attention to detail and quality is far more pronounced. Under the circumstances, use of shortcuts wouldn't be unheard of, especially since some cards like the Three of Swords are basically copies of earlier decks.
 

Debra

The minors are tied to the Sola Busca.

Gregory, I don't understand your comment. Illustrators often are glad for technologies that help them work more efficiently.
 

gregory

The minors are tied to the Sola Busca.

Gregory, I don't understand your comment. Illustrators often are glad for technologies that help them work more efficiently.
True - it just feels wrong, somehow. She was a bit airy faery... And I would have been surprised if she'd wanted to. But still - fair enough.

Though there's no reason to suppose that would have been true of the Sola Busca, I think.
 

Zephyros

There's also the question of whether the machine would even be available to her. She did have contacts in the printing industry, of course, where such a thing would be in use, but it would have to be pretty widespread for her to be able to use it.
 

Abrac

Hi Desecrated. She would've needed something to copy. What would she have used as originals?
 

Zephyros

She might have made sketches at the British Museum. She saw the Sola Busca, at least.
 

roppo

The editor of The Occult Review, Ralph Shirley, wrote in the editorial of 1909 Dec. issue --

"I may mention that the artist, Miss Colman Smith, made a careful examination of numerous tarot packs from the 14th century onwards before undertaking her work"

And I know several instances Pixie used photos for the basis of her work. It might be no wonder if she used photocopies of the old decks.
 

Desecrated

The Pierpont-Morgan deck Refers to the visconto-sforza deck that is in the Pierpont-Morgan museum in new york.
The machine was in new york.
She knew cutting edge artists in new york.

She also owned and operated a printing shop for a couple of years before designing the deck. So she would have been familiar with printing techniques and mass-copying techniques.
And unlike the image that Marcus Katz and tali Goodwin wants to paint, She was far more knowledgeable about the occult and had far more professional experience that they let on sometimes.

They say that she only had a fragmented part of the Book T from Waite, but she also had the complete book T from Yates and an unillustrated version from Matters. (According to Stuart Kaplan)

And yes the minors are often copies from the sola buesca deck that was on display in the British museum.

This is another thing. In 'the secrets of the tarot' they write something along the line that she mentioned that she had been there for days, "but she probably only glanced at them" ?
What evidence did they have for writing that? Both she and Aurthur Waite wrote that they spent at least 3 days in the museum sketching from the sola busca.