XXI - Le Monde

Cerulean

World card discussion--TDM repro. image

I found this, an interesting addition---the world and a TDM design:

http://thealchemicalegg.com/leotaroN.html

The Leonardo exhibition of drawings in New York is supposed to be spectacular because many worldwide communities and collections of Leonardo were asked for contributions by the Curator of the New York Met...and in many cases, as one of the curators of the Italian collections said, "For the people of New York, I will contribute ___ drawings."

I think this is a kindness from other communities in the world that we all want to remember. And related to the article and also touching on questions of squaring the circle, I had this thought:

Yes, we would like to believe the design on the World card is
an answer to Dante's question at the end of the Divine Comedy--- he was one who wanted to square the circle with equations or reason. But he wrote to us that found that pure, learned reasoning alone wasn't enough. He also needed to be balanced by having faith in higher truths that he did not fully understand with his mind. He had to go through stages until he was able to see the panoramic vision with new eyes, until he understood and was able to form the perfect balance of faith, hope and love.
I think that I like how Angela Collins Dickerman ended her meditations of the 22 trumps with Dante Algheri's last cantos of the Divine Comedy. How Paradiso and the Divine Comedy ended with an enlightened, but gentle tone. Dante himself had passed on two years earlier in service for his last patron, an elder statesman negotiating peace in a perilous time.
His last cantos were found by his son---there was a dream that Dante Algheri came and spoke to his son and in the night, the young man went to the new owner of his father's last home. The new owner and the son found the manuscripts where the son's dream said it would be, behind some plaster and wall decoration--a bag of manuscripts that finished the poem to the exact 100 cantos that we know today.

My hope that it helps to add a little to a glorious group discussion that I enjoy revisiting on the TDM majors....
 

jmd

Thankyou for this excellent link to the Alchemical Egg paper, Mari_H.

Leonardo's vitruvian man stems from, it should also be pointed out, earlier considerations made by the Roman architect Vitruvius (hence 'vitruvian'), and even earlier comments regarding the mathematical and metaphorical problem of squaring the circle.

The mathematical 'solution' to the problem of how to construct a circle and a square each having the same surface area requires the use of irrationals in its algebraic solution. Its geometrical solution is also not straightforward.

But that, I suppose, is not our major concern.


The 'circle', around which are the four evangelists/fixed signs of the zodiac/Ezekial's living creatures, and which contains a human figure, is wonderfully linked in the article presented.

Of course, Leonardo's vitruvian man highlights more the golden proportions than makes use of the symbolic depictions. Though the historian may cry that this is not a connection intended, another may very well respond that surely, in the context of both its development and its inner essence, these connections have overlapping considerations which therefore relate.

Another worthy consideration is the depiction of Mithras surrounded by the ecliptic of the zodiac (& hence includes the signs depicted - for which the card only 'leaves' room for the four signs and thus its broader symbolic content)....

... I must get myself a scanner at home!!!
 

jmd

Thank you Baneemy - adding to yet another rendition of the same important iconography.

I have a whole collection of these from various churches and cathedrals dating between the 10th and 13th centuries.

Propably the more famous ones, such as Notre Dame of Chartres or of Paris can be seen in a number of compilations of Mediaeval art...

And then there are the equivalent rendering in miniatures - ie, in handpainted manuscripts of the middle ages.
 

Baneemy

jmd, I'd be very interested in the other examples you've found of this iconography. If it's not too much trouble, could you give me a list of some of the cathedrals, manuscripts, etc.? You can post it here or PM me.
 

Tarotphelia

jmd said:
The main change has been, from my perspective, the possible ambiguity or 'maleness' of most early depictions modified to clearly feminine depictions. There are numerous depictions of Christ which are so similar to this one that, to my mind at least, the card undoubtedly depicted Christ in its early renditions.
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I am sure I have no concrete answers, only more questions:

If the World card is Christ , and based on a tradition of depiction such as the one in the attachment at the St. Cernin Basilica, wouldn't portraying him as a transexual or woman be the greatest heresy & insult & get you imprisoned, tortured , or killed in the Christian cultures of the past? Viewed as rather like going around showing pix of Monica Lewinski on the cross?

Is it possible that the symbolism of the World card is separate from Christianity & Jesus was imposed upon it as he was on so many other things ? Like the pagan festivals being co opted & changed into saintly holidays ?

(And what is the World card doing around in the 11th century as a sculpture ?)


Tarotphelia
 

full deck

?

I had a conversation once with this fellow who told me that the woman on the world card had their genitals concealed because they were a true hermophridite -- having both male and female genitals -- and that this represented the virgin Mary.

I was pretty skeptical and amused only to have a medical monograph (from the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland) on true hermophridites put under my nose and it said that basically all children of true hermaphrodites are male and that there have been no known recorded instances of self-fertilization (though it was common amongst Cocker Spaniels. This would be an interesting idea in that Christ could have been the only one instance of self-fertilization in a true-hermaphrodite. Mind you, this was not my idea but it was certainly something to bend ones mind around.

Has anyone else encountered something along these lines?
 

Tarotphelia

Does this mean that all female figures in medieval art with a drape or fig leaf are hermaphrodites as well? I don't think you get a topless Virgin Mary unless she is breastfeeding a baby Jesus though. However I can't claim to have seen all paintings of the past.


Tarotphelia
 

firemaiden

It is not blasphemous at all, Tarophelia. It is ancient history. The androgyny of the Christ figure could very well have been one of the ways in which the new religion was able to assimilate the older pagan religion burried beneath it. I first learned of the androgeny of Christ when studying the very Catholic play, Tête d'or by Catholic mystic, Paul Claudel -- in which the hero-warrior-world saviour is an androgynous figure with long blond hair.

The attempt to understand Tête d'or - (head of gold) brought me to inquiring about hermaphrodism, and learned that it is a sign of divinity. The two sexes united in one person.

The long blond hair, de riguer for both representations of Christ, AND Apollo, was also de rigueur for the Merovingian Kings. It was a sign of their royalty. (That's what I dimly remember of my medieval history...lol)

Here is a page which mentions the hair : long blond hair.

And now-- an important question for jmd. Why does the creature on the top left look like a golden chicken?
 

jmd

As I also mentioned in the thread on VI - L'Amoureux, full deck gives a link to a Byzantium exhibit with a few depictions having, as to be expected, iconographic similaritites to Tarot.

With regards to the World, the obverse of image 5, from Gallery VI is especially interesting (the other side, by the way, has imagery a little reminiscent - to my imagination - of the Papess and the Hermit having some kind of conversation). Their caption reads:
  • 'Two-Sided Icon with the Virgin Kataphyge and the Vision of Ezekiel.
    Thessalonike, between 1371 and 1393. Tempera and gold on wood; 93 x 61.5 x 3 cm (36 5/8 x 24 1/4 x 1 1/8 in.). Institute of Archaeology with Museum at the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, Medieval Department, Sofia (2057).'
Of course of note are the four evangelists depicted, as on the Tarot, as the four living creatures with respective books.

The imagery, similar to another I may also have posted much earlier, is also reminiscent of the sequence of XX and XXI, with the world below apparantly depicitng the waters of the lower world - the fish are clearly depicted if zoomed on (which needs to be done on the site, as the attached image may be too small).

Again, a wonderful rendition of some early similarities of early iconography and Tarot imagery.

Attached is the image.
 

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