XVIIII Le Soleil

xviiii Le Soleil

Unlike the Moon card, which has had a reasonable consistency of detail in its twin-tower, crayfish, pond, twin animal, and droplets falling towards to Moon depiction, the Sun card appears to have had more variations in various details, as well as major variations in its Marseilles vs northern depictions (from which the Waite/Coleman-Smith derives).

In some (Marseilles) decks, the droplets head towards the Sun, on others, towards the ground. On some decks, the two people appear as children - or at least genderless - on others, clearly of specific genders.

The card also has a consistent representation of a low stone/brick wall, and the two persons are clearly in touch with each other.

Attached, to introduce the post, is the reconstituted 1650 Noblet version, upon which one can clearly see male and female, and upon which the drops are heading towards the Sun.

I was just wondering if the droplets could also be seen as flames being cast off from the sun, rather than droplets moving towards the sun.

Also, is that Noblet deck commercially available? I like it. I'm sorry if this has been answered in previous posts -- I'm trying to read all these wonderful Marseilles posts but I may not have gotten to all of them.

-- Lee

edited

i was waiting for this discussion to be raised, mainly because of one detail that i have a problem interpretating: between the legs of the right child (or person, character, depends on the deck), there is nothing. no lines, no drawing, the ground stops, even the bottom line of the wall doesnt appear.
it isnt drawn like that in the version jmd has attached to his post, but it shows clearly in martaeu's version and in camoins version. might it show a-sexuallity? or maybe that the right character is in a different place, a pure place, and its guiding the left character into it as well?

it does look like the right child guides the left one to the right, to the future. the right child also stands on a different land, on a little hill of his own, which shows more clearly in camoin's card since its painted white while the rest of the ground is bright blue.

in several old decks, the left character is blind, and in some marseilles cards he isnt clealy blind, but does look like he's searching his way with his hands, and the right child helps him.

you can also look at the two twins as they are walking towards eachother, meeting at the middle of the road, achieving an agreement or a compromise - the one drop hung between them might show that. it might also show a kind of partnership, where the sides are equal (each one has 6 droplets on his side) and have something mutual to both of them (the on drop in the middle). or a sort of merging opposite sides, like the temperance - only in the temperance, the sides merge completely, while here, each side keeps its own character and individual definition (the 6 droplets on each side), although the have something in common (the one droplet in the middle).

the collars around the children's neck can be seen as an association to the devil card. in camoin card, that aspect is quite blatantly displayed with the left child having a tail. this might be seen as a way of emerging from the dark underworld of the devil into the light, the sun is starting to shine, everything seems more clear, especially after the terrifying illusions of the previous card, the moon.

the wall - it might be limiting the children, and might be protecting them, letting them grow and evolve, with the warm light of the sun, in a secure surrounding.

I just got back from a couple days in Santa Cruz and discovered all kinds of changes and new faces here. Change always makes things more interesting.

Supletion, you've brought up a couple of details from this card that I had noticed before, but never really thought about much. I have always assumed that XVIIII is one of the easiest pictures to interpret, but now I guess I might have to change that thing. The tail on the left hand figure, which I've seen on more than one version of the card, and the empty space between the legs of the figure on the right, may be significant, but the latter might simply be a pictorial idiosyncrasy reflecting the difficulties of woodblock carving. Still, the fact that it occurs more than once argues for its converying some meaning. I'll have to study these matters further.

The Marseilles version of the trump seems to have sprung to life suddenly and without precedent except in the Cary Sheet deck. The earliest version, the Visconti-Sforza's, shows a single airborne putto, sailing along above the world on a black cloud while holding aloft a red sun disc decorated with a barely visible human face. This was one of the productions of the Visconti-Sforza's "second artist," and whether there was an earlier card, or what it might have looked like, is anybody's guess. If the Cary-Yale deck had a sun card it hasn't survived, and very early Italian woodblock decks show an androgynous sun face, oddly oriented along a horizontal axis, looking down at four trees.

The Cary Sheet's sun trump is the earliest version I know of that incorporates the Marseilles iconography. Only the right-hand third of that card remains, but there's enough of it to show that all the Marseilles elements are there except the wall. The image has definite associations with the sign of Gemini, I would imagine because summer, the season of the sun, begins at the very end of Gemini's tenure in the skies.

I've always thought of the wall as protecting the two children, who seem to be enclosed in some sort of garden or secured space. Likewise, the divinatory meaning of sunshine in a person's life is so obvious as to nearly eliminate the need for any further interpretation ("Sun's gonna shine in my back door someday," sang Tommy Johnson). For that reason, I'm somewhat skeptical concerning the existence of any intentionally buried meanings in the details of the card, such as the number of rows of bricks in the wall, the space between the legs of the child on the right, etc. However, people posting on this thread have argued so persuasively in some cases that I'll have to give it some more thought.

My early seventeenth century Tarot de Paris has a strongly different scene on Le Soleil. A woman sits beneath a tree; to the right, a half-human, half-animal figure, it looks like it might be a monkey, holding up a mirror. The woman may be combing her hair.

All of the astronomical cards have strongly different symbols on this deck. The Star has an astronomer/astrologer with a compass, rather than the woman with the jars of the Marseilles. The Moon omits the crawdad and instead has a man playing a harp, apparently serenading a nude woman in an upstairs window. This is similar to the scene that has been added to the Moon in the 1JJ Swiss deck.

The Tarot de Paris puts a rather different, dark spin on the card symbolism. The woman fussing with her hair while gazing in the mirror is a traditional symbol for frivolity and vanity. There's a fairly familiar woodcut of a woman doing this and being mooned by a demon in the mirror's reflection.

cary yale visconti

kaz

visconti sforza

kaz

soprafino

kaz

It would be great, ihcoyc, if you could post your Paris deck (referred to, by the way, as the Parisian Tarot in volumes one and two of the Encyclopedia of Tarot. For the major Arcana, see especially volume one, pp134-135). And great to see yet another new regular contributor. Thank you both, Supletion and ihcoyc (& Kaz, Lee, Diana and catboxer).

In the 1701 Dodal version (which I've attached), the 'space' between the legs occurs with both figures, and I concur with catboxer that it is probably a remnant of detailling omission or difficulty. Still, the question which must be asked is whether this has significance.

One symbolic aspect of the legs is their function of movement. It's as if, through the very expected physical space being obliterated in this detail, a question emerges as to whether it points towards a movement into a non-physical reality. I have often been reminded of Plato's cave analogy when contemplating this card, and the possible blindness of at least the (at times animal-tailed) left-hand figure only adds to this aspect of the possibilities here.

For me, another really important consideration is the alchemical one. Here we see two individuals, possibly children, and possibly of opposite genders. None enter the heavenly kingdom save as children. Yet what may also be pointed to is the alchemical union of opposites, male and female, but also with open eyes and closed, and with animalistic tendencies (tail again) and angelic (higher human).

Does the wall contain the children within, or keep them from the heavenly garden?

Partly because of the way I also pair the cards, I very much see this one as being the inner aspect of the Hermit. His lantern being but a poor illumination of the bright Sun which is permitted to shine within, illuminating the alchemical union about to take place, and from which he will emerge an integrated being (later represented with card XXI).

With regards to cards, I usually, especially when there are discrepencies, refer to the Conver Marseilles, upon which I will comment later.

Attached, in the meantime, is the 1701 Dodal.