The Byzantine Tarot

Le Fanu

I agree, it is a Westernised take. I love the theme and I love Byzantine ikons. I shall definitely buy this deck as - apart from the beauty of the Byzantine style - I like John Matthew's and Cilla Conway's other tarot work.

However, I have to say, the best Byzantine deck to date is the Golden Tarot of the Tsars. That feels genuinely Byzantine. They have to have those fabulous, dark, heavy-lidded eyes. That one will take some beating.

However, anyone who looks at Byzantine art will realise that a tarot deck could easily become monotonous as the artwork is often taken up with lone 2-dimensional figures. It really needs movement and action injected into it so I hope this one does that. Either way, the theme will be very beautiful, of that I have no doubt.

But the Golden Tarot of the Tsars is a beautiful, wintry deck, wonderful when laid out on a Yuletide tablecloth, glittering by candlelight.
 

Nemia

Reall, ikonos is Greek for image, and it is used in many contexts - you even have icons on your desktop. One of the uses of the word is for religious icons, revered in Orthodox churches. But you can use the word also in a more general sense, and then you can say that Marilyn Monroe is an icon of the 20th century.

One branch of art history is called iconography - the reading of images. Any images, not only Orthodox icons.

The tarot is full of religious Christian imagery - usually from the Western tradition. I'm curious to see how it looks when Eastern Christian images are used.

Thank you for the tip with the Golden Tarot of the Tsars, Le Fanu. Oh that list of HAVE TO HAVEs is only growing...
 

reall

yep, know all that!^^ ;)))) I just refereed it to religious/ikonos looking paintings!^^ ;)))
/A secondary meaning (based on a non-standard translation of the Greek and Russian equivalent terms) is the production of religious images, called icons, in the Byzantine and Orthodox Christian tradition; that is covered at Icon./taken from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iconography
 

blue_fusion

Noooooo! Lol i've been dreaming of creating a byzantine deck for years! The art of this deck, though, looks really nice.
 

Freddie

Le Fanu said:
I agree, it is a Westernised take. I love the theme and I love Byzantine ikons. I shall definitely buy this deck as - apart from the beauty of the Byzantine style - I like John Matthew's and Cilla Conway's other tarot work.

However, I have to say, the best Byzantine deck to date is the Golden Tarot of the Tsars. That feels genuinely Byzantine. They have to have those fabulous, dark, heavy-lidded eyes. That one will take some beating.

However, anyone who looks at Byzantine art will realise that a tarot deck could easily become monotonous as the artwork is often taken up with lone 2-dimensional figures. It really needs movement and action injected into it so I hope this one does that. Either way, the theme will be very beautiful, of that I have no doubt.

But the Golden Tarot of the Tsars is a beautiful, wintry deck, wonderful when laid out on a Yuletide tablecloth, glittering by candlelight.
Click to expand...


I agree Le Fanu as Tsar is the deck I use on a daily basis and for a lot of sitters. This new deck does look promising. I am a John Matthews fan as well.

Freddie
 

desertrat

I have been eagerly awaiting this deck, which is supposed to be released in May. I was hoping by now we would have an inkling as to what the minors look like, but I've not found anything helpful posted on the Internet. I must reach deep down for extra patience.

Does Connections book publishers usually release their decks on time? The cards will probably have those plain boring Connections backs, which would truly be a shame since Byzantine art is anything but plain and boring.
 

Nemia

Does anybody know why it's still not available? It should have been released by now. I'm really impatient.... I'd love to buy that deck....
 

magpie9

Simple. I want it.
 

Electric Maenad

Oh, man - when this is available in Canada I'm gonna be all over that like cat hair on a new sweater. I've been wanting a Byzantine-style deck for ages.
 
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