Art Deco deck?

OK, Art Majors -- Educate Me

danubhe said:

Oh - & as a "homage", I'm afraid that the 1987 Erte doesn't count. I'm looking "period", once again.

Click to expand...

If something exactly replicates the Art Deco style (I'm not saying that Folchi's "Erte" does this -- it always looked very Erte-like to me, but I admit to not having a trained eye for such things), are you saying that it's not Art Deco unless it was also done during the officially-designated "Art Deco" period of the 20s and 30s?

Put another way: if an artist strives to create a work that replicates the stylistic elements of art movement X, can we not then call it X, even if the "heyday" of movement X occurred sometime long ago? If I paint something that can't be distinguished stylistically from, say, a PreRaphaelite painting, do I still have to come up with a different name for the "style" because the dominant PreRaphaelite wave of painters dried up sometime in the early 20th century, according to the art history books?

Or, danubhe, are you just asking the question of whether there were many tarot decks done in the 20s and 30s (and if there were, did they have an Art Deco "bent" to them)?

-- Jeannette
The Tarot Garden

Jeanette, what an interesting dilemma you raised. One that would apply to other styles and periods and require a more specific request criteria from an interested party, i.e.

I am looking for a deck produced in the period between the 20s and 30s of any style.

or I am looking for a Art Deco deck produced in the period of that movement.

or I am looking for an Art Deco "styled" deck produced at any time period

Cerulean said:

I've heard of an English tarotlike deck that is hard to come by--Thomsen-Leng, circa 1929:

http://www.wopc.co.uk/tarot/tleng.html

Click to expand...

The Thomsen-Leng isn't "tarot like;" it is a tarot by even the strictest definitions. 78 cards, 22 majors (standard titles), 56 minors (standard Ace - 10 and four courts in the usual four suits).

It was published in 1935, as stated on the page to which you've so kindly provided a link.

But I wouldn't say that it's even remotely Art Deco in style. The illustrations are stylistically closer to the feel of the RWS, IMO. But mostly, it reminds me of the sort of illustrations you might see in magazine ads from that period, for cleaning products or laxatives or the like.

-- Jeannette
The Tarot Garden

cirom said:

Jeanette, what an interesting dilemma you raised. One that would apply to other styles and periods and require a more specific request criteria from an interested party...

Click to expand...

Oh, yes. Specifics are nice. You have no idea how much "fun" we have with some of the search service requests we get. "I'm looking for a deck -- I think it was published in the 60s, or maybe the 80s (except maybe it was the 70s), that looks kinda like Thomas Kinkade pictures, but not really, and the "Fool" card shows the Fool with a flea on his left big toe (it's barely visible, but I know it's there). Can you find it for me?" LOL!

-- Jeannette
The Tarot Garden

Here's some links to art deco...

http://www.artlex.com/ArtLex/a/artdeco.html

Art deco graphics, if we were thinking techno-style, might include the Argio Orell at one extreme, because steamships and exotic locales are included.

There's an odd crossover from somewhat ornamental decorative, hard-edge colors in art deco and the graphic representations of humanity...

...to slender, idealized human forms in a pagentry of fancy dress in tarot. Unfortunately I've only seen the Thomson-Leng in scans only, so I'm not certain if they are fortune cards or really tarot. I'll take other people's words for it...and given that others have seen or read the LWB and seen the decoration of the cards, you'd have a better idea that it's not art deco!

I sometimes don't know whether to include Knapp-Hall as 'art deco,' but his designed majors seems to follow some likenesses to the Oswald Wirth 22 cards and there's a sense of ornamentation and sophistication in it's use of 'mandala' symbolism. Also I get a sense of geometry, even though it might be simple (?) I've seen some of Augustus P. Knapp's black and white graphics in the Lost Keys of Masonry, the Ways of the Lonely Ones and Egypt and he certainly has the flavor of harmony and proportion that I've seen in other illustrators of the period...

Best regards,

Cerulean

P.S. The Thomsen-Leng's Ace of Cups does remind me of the Eudes Picard definition that the Ace of Cups in the Crystals Tarot follows and the El Gran Esoterico (much later 20th century tarots). Eudes Picard's meanings included in the Encyclopedia of Occult Sciences in English (M.C. Poinset) says circa 1939...although originally Eudes Picards designs and descriptions was circa 1900. Maybe we're wandering too far from the discussion...

The art in my current favourite(they change all the time);Revelations Tarot by Zach Wong has been described as Art Nouveau(Jugent/Art Deco I believe).
Then there is Art Nouveau by Antonella Castelli,but I guess you looked at that one already.

Cerulean said:

I'm certain there are German tarocks, French tarots with appropriate suits and other variations...I believe the Lasenik from Prague qualifies...
Cerulean

Click to expand...

Yes, the Lasenic is the right period, but it isn't at all Art Deco in style. We have one very Art Deco card in the Tarot of Prague - the Temperance card - but I hardly think one card qualifies the deck as "Art Deco"!

Strictly speaking, I was going for Art-Deco period, as opposed to revival, which is anything later than about 1943. There may be a continuity to the style, but it's part of a specific generation's - the Jazz's - expression. Just going by what they say in art-school, etc.

I have a friend who deals antiques.
Anything, but his speciality is deco. Particularly pottery, Suzie Cooper, Clarice Cliff... (I only remember the famous names!)

Anyhow, I have got him looking out for decks for me, so maybe he'll find something.

He reckons Deco ends when the war starts. So, in Britain that is 39.
So, as Crowly/Harris were working in Britain, it would put their deck after the Deco period!
Crazy or what?
They should have done it in America. It would still have been the Deco period then.

Although I don't think that name was used till much later.

What about the Egyptian Tarot by Comte de St Germain?