Rider-Waite - Smith Landscape

Freddie

Greetings,

Does anyone know where Waite and Smith got the ideas for the landscape scenes in the deck? Are the Two towers in the Death and Moon card supposed to be Stonehenge? Are the Fool and Hermit supposed to be in Cornwall? Any other ideas as to the locations of where these landscapes (or any in the deck) are supposed to be located?

Thank you,

Freddie
 

thorhammer

I don't know about specific localities, but I do know that PCS was an artist in a theatre company and did the backdrops etc for stage productions. That "stage" kind of feel is evident in many of the cards in the deck, particularly the Courts.

\m/ Kat
 

roppo

As I wrote somewhere, I suppose the landscapes of RWS are from actual places. For example, Four of the Wands is a scene from the Royal May-Day of Cheshire, England. A garden with small arch-gate shown in the Ace of Pentacles is from Ellen Terry's home, Smallhythe, Kent.

My impression is that some scenes of Minor Arcana are from stages, but I'm not yet able to identify the specific plays. Possible candidates might be "Dante" by Sardou (1905), "Beckett" by Tennyson (1905), etc.

In several occasions Pixie traced photographs given by her employers and made up illustrations out of them. I suspect such situation existed around her in 1909. Production of 78 cards in a year might have required rather rough things artisitically.