foolish
Ah, the smoking gun!
Ross G Caldwell said:I don't know of any French invasion in 1571. Anybody?
^this^Debra said:I don't like to see ideas shut down.
I think it's perfectly legitimate and interesting to ask, "What might a heretic see in looking at Bosch?"It doesn't require establishing or even claiming that Bosch intended heretical ideas. It can be an exercise in the flexibility of symbols. It's an intellectual game.
This parallels the main issue in discussion here of Robert Swiryn (foolish's) book, "The Secret of the Tarot: How the Story of the Cathars was Concealed in the Tarot of Marseilles." (I've almost finished it.)
foolish said:The assumption being made by Berger is that it is a representation of the Christian view of the Garden of Eden on one side, the World in the middle and Hell on the other; and that the whole painting is a prediction of what is to come. However, even this assumption can be challenged by looking closely at the painting and asking ourselves some questions.
I agree. I think so far we're doing #1, playing an intellectual game of visualization and interpretation. Figuring out what the artist had in mind requires evidence, not just logical argument. And anyway, artists may well have more than one thing in mind, and may have things in their minds they don't recognize themselves, concepts or connections that emerge only when painted.foolish said:The big point here is about what we are really doing with these ideas - are we cooperating in an intellectual game of visualizing things in art, or can we begin to make assumptions about what an artist might have intended? The latter involves a leap of faith (hopefully based on some logical arguments), but may have more significance to tarot history.
\Debra said:What are you talking about? This isn't an "assumption." It is simply what the tryptich shows: The World flanked by the pre-fall paradise and hell. These images have been interpreted by about a zillion people--art historians, art history students, ordinary folks.one mind and voice.
MOD-NOTE:Debra:As to using imagination:
There's a new forum here at AT, the Experimental Techniques forum. A couple of weeks ago I asked specifically if we could have threads there on what I would call "speculative iconography"--and the mods said yes, bring it on! Actually I was just wondering if there's some way to move discussions of alternate interpretations of cards (like the Cathar-istic interpretation over to that forum. I think the usual standards of historical evidence etc. need not apply there; it can be perhaps a freer place to play with controversial ideas about tarot.
I say, let's go. Here: http://www.tarotforum.net/forumdisplay.php?f=154
I think that's a great idea, Debra. I wish I would have started my thread in an area like this, as it would have probably avoided the heated dpbate as to whether the topic was worthy of discussion in the history section. (However, as a newcomer to the forum, I may have been misled by the description of the history section, which includes "THEORIES on the origins of the tarot.")Debra said:There's a new forum here at AT, the Experimental Techniques forum. A couple of weeks ago I asked specifically if we could have threads there on what I would call "speculative iconography"--and the mods said yes, bring it on! Actually I was just wondering if there's some way to move discussions of alternate interpretations of cards (like the Cathar-istic interpretation over to that forum. I think the usual standards of historical evidence etc. need not apply there; it can be perhaps a freer place to play with controversial ideas about tarot.