A Walk in the Wood...cuts, the Marseilles

This year on top of going back to school, working, and finishing up my training for my first degree in Alexandrian Wicca I thought why not try and go through the Woods...the woodcuts that make up the tarot of the Marseille...I need another thing to do. So with the aid of Nicky posting on here as time goes on... here we go…. Please be gentle…and feel free to jump in and comment.

Day One: I gotta admit at first I was not thrilled. I’ve always been a RWS guy myself with a little Tarot of Dreams tossed in. I know the history of the deck and kinda thought that some of it was people LOOKING for something that is not there. Like looking at a piece of toast and by turning it to the left a little and holding it just right of the light and squinting you can see Jesus. I have a copy of the Jean Noblet I got because I thought I had to have ONE Marseille in the collection and it might as well be that one, so despite not really being drawn to the art I thought it a good deck to have. So with me to work today went the little box as well as a copy of The Secrets of the Marseilles Tarot by Namron and Robert Place’s Tarot history book and on break I dug in…


http://0uterspace.files.wordpress.com/2008/01/le-fov.jpg


I thought the best way to approach the deck would be by color first, see if that brings any insight to the kinda homely looking card. Bam….did it ever. My brain hurts with just the use of color right now. Here is what I came up with based on just the colors:

Le Fov- The Fool can be seen at the beginning or the end of the journey and fits both. His bag is green in color representing the hope he carries with him, but to bring that hope he carries it on a staff that is red meaning that it is the hope that comes from pain, maybe loss (?). He has his battle scars, the blue in his collar lets us know that but he is still hopeful as it is ringed in green. Kinda one of those eternally optimistic persons. He path too is hopeful but a long and not without pain as seen in his red shoes. He carries with him the yellow staff of perseverance with him and the yellow also lets us know he has set his sites firm on the future. Following him along and ‘getting his attention’ is a little creature of awareness and understanding, while the fools tunic is one of a growing awareness this little creature is there to make sure he stays on task...or not.


That’s my first pass at the card. It’s not the more happy-go-lucky Fool of the RWS or the Cosmic Egg of the Thoth it’s a more world weary Fool but one that has his wits and will keep on trucking. Now I’m almost obsessed with this image of the Fool…..


Ohhhhhh who hear has read Namron’s book?…..if you have read it did you have to be ON mushrooms or just worship them…. My gods that’s a strange little tittle.

Never heard of that Namron book. Does it cover pips too?

The Fool

I see we are raring to go... which kinda makes us Fools, wouldn't you say dear?

My deck is the Dodal from US games. I realize that studying woodcut decks is very much different than what we are used to... but in spite of the lack of clarity I would expect from block printing, the shading is quite well done on this US games reproduction.

My Fool has pretty vividly dressed, quite flamboyant in nature...except his backside is in the process of being exposed by a rather unfriendly looking dog....the use of the shading on this dog makes him appear quite vicious. Nothing like the carefree companion we see on other decks.

His hat is a tad strange, but goes along with his festive jacket. This Fool appears to be heading out in style. He has his bag over his shoulder quite close to his body. I notice his head is tilted a bit as though contemplating the road ahead.

My first impression of this card is that someone will be going into the unknown but they better keep their wits (the bag) about them and they better watch their ass.

I like how this card is so different from how it is depicted in the modern decks. Here we basically have a roving madman. I love to think of him as the child of the Moon, a lunatic. While I always associated a certain amount of freedom with him in modern decks, here I see almost a complete freedom. To be totally outside of the structures of society and to be accepted in a way for your lack of conformity to the norm.....isn't that the freedom we all seek?

Starlightexp: Ohhhhhh who hear has read Namron’s book?…..if you have read it did you have to be ON mushrooms or just worship them…. My gods that’s a strange little tittle.

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Namron = Norman. I can't belive anyone actually bought one of his books. But there's no 'Law of Meaning' regarding an individual take on the Marseille cards. However I prefer to see them in a historical context because they do depict images from centuries ago, according to the mores and understandings of the times & places of their creation. I like the Paul Huson book.

sapienza:...I like how this card is so different from how it is depicted in the modern decks. Here we basically have a roving madman...

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I see him the same, a poor beggerly person who wanders from place to place. He has the freedom to come & go as he pleases provided he observes basic conventions when required.


Bee

nicky said:

I see we are raring to go... which kinda makes us Fools, wouldn't you say dear?

Click to expand...

Maybe a little.

Here is the verse Jean-Claude's book as on the colors:

"White, the tears of Matire Jacues
Black the Earth that bore him
Red the blood he shed
Blue the blows he suffered
Yellow, perseverance
Green, Hope"

Then he go on to say that the light blue color is one of awareness and the flesh tone that of being human. He also points out that the only three cards in the deck that have flesh colored faces are The Fool, Death and the Devil, but more on that I'm sure when the time comes.

The fool is you, the fool is me, the fool isn't fool at all!

Hi Folks,

I'm gently jumping in just to say that (for me) 'Le Mat' isn't a fool at all.
Ok, he might be wearing strange cloths and a weird hat, but does that make him a fool?
He is like a chess piece on the board, like a goose on the Game of the Goose... he is you and me walking his way through life...
not always knowing where he is, wondering what the hell is going on and looking for his way to become more and a better human.
Amen,
Rafaël

The other day I was thinking on toupees. Not that I need one! But I was looking at this guy in the subway who was wearing a fake mane and I thought: “he knows it is fake, I know it is fake, we all know it is fake, but still, we all as if nothing weird is going on here, and he has this thick hair growing on his head”. By wearing a toupee a person is asking something from us: he is asking us to pretend that his toupee is actually his real hair. We do so out of politeness, but we all know that we are pretending. We pretend because we are able to put ourselves in that person’s shoes, since we can share some of the urges and fears that had him wanting a toupee in the first place. A toupee stands for a string of untold things we all know.

Symbols are pacts. They are some sort of cultural common ground that inhabits the border between what we understand at a collective level and what we have experienced at a personal level.

Instead of wondering if the Fool got his underwear second hand, or if he is wearing size ten shoes, we can see how he embodies a series of experiences we have had, and we can file together as ‘hitting the road’. In your personal case the fool embodies a series of experiences about setting yourself in motion that you have had: experiences that talk about leaving certain things behind, experiences that talk about being propelled by some illusions, experiences that talk about being bothered by certain things haunting you along your way, and experiences that talk about ignoring these hauntings. At collective level, that sense of constant wandering is linked with the image of a pilgrim or a beggar.

All the trumps show an attitude that can be assimilated by us by analogy, and just as the trumps represent a person in his/her several attitudes, each one of the pip cards represents a situation. These situations are framed in four different kind of relationship: relationships that bring people together, like when we exchange money or when we drink together, and situations that have people confronting each other, as when we fight, or when we use our status to keep others at bay. Within those coordinates, when we look at a pip card and we see each element in the card as a person within a situation, we see a whole story. We see people experiencing thing we have experienced. Mixing cards and placing them in a row is just a way of extending that story beyond the moment shown in one single image.

The TdM is cool and wild in that, once you have seen something, you can’t unsee it.

Thanks for sharing the fun you are having!



Best,


EE

EE,

Thank you! Beyond the insightful post (which I will be coming back to time and again when I am drowning in the pips), your use of the term pilgrim has really opened up more of this card. The stance on The Fool is almost purposeful, which is somewhat contrary to the modern fools who are depicted as playful.
This Fool may have a bell on his hat but he does appear to be on a (sacred?) mission.

xoxox
N.

The Fool evolved through Tarot from the down-and-out madman of the Minchiate and Visconti Sforza decks to the carefree happy chap we now see in modern decks, so studying these old decks gives a whole different impression and meaning for the card than what most Tarot readers are used to. He was more a mad beggar than someone who went gayly on his travels with a smile on his face and happy thoughts of not caring about what came next. He very much did care, this was someone who meandered through streets looking for food and a place to put his head down for the night, was taunted by kids and adults alike (and dogs!) and driven out of towns because he scared people.

The Marseilles deck images appear to be a better slant on the character because of the process of woodcutting and block colouring which gives less freedom of expression than the artists had in the hand painted depictions of the Viscontis, but still he isn't the frilly Fool of the modern decks. Only when some of the history is taken into account can the Marseilles deck be truly appreciated as a reading deck.