Temperance

Parzival

Beautifully summarized. Still, I wonder what those first painters were thinking.Neoplatonic Soul force? Astral world? Or maybe just an artistic non-touch.
 

Yves Le Marseillais

Ambiguity and tarot

On ne sort de l’ambiguïté qu'à son détriment" ...Cardinal de Retz dans ses Mémoires.

We go out of the ambiguity only to his detriment "... Cardinal de Retz in his Memories.


Hello again,

I think that this famous (in France) sentence could be well applicated to:

Tarot

Tarologists *

This card

*I don't blame any honnest tarot reader to let a wide place to interpretation of course but rather target some "Marchands du Temple" (Temple sellers).

The more I see variety in historical tarot decks (I don't mention modern artists interpretations who are also respectable), the more I get free of any school, guru, or egotic behaviour and people.

When I decided six years ago to start a printing business of old historical tarot decks I was in search of The Truth re Tarot.
Now I understand that truth as many faces but I still estimate that truth is a good and valuable goal.

Cordialy,

Yves
 

kwaw

In the earliest Italian Tarots, there is no fluidic flow between the two vessels --only invisibility. What do you suppose this meant to the artists who painted the mysterious first image of Temperance, before the later artists "watered" the space between the two vessels?

Depends which reproduction you are looking at, in some there is a faint suggestion of something pouring out of the top jar, but this doesn't extent to the bottom one, and may just be an illusiong from a shade or folding in her dress.

Interpretation may also take into context the order of the cards. We do not know for sure the order in which the VS were intended, but in some of the earliest listings we have (such as the Steele Sermon, and several tarocchi appropriati such as those from Ferrara and Venice), one of the orders closest to those times was:

[6] La temperantia (VS - Woman with two jugs, no wings)
[7] Lo caro triumphale (VS - Woman in a chariot)
[8] L'amore (VS - couple below blind cupid)
[9] La fortezza (VS - man with a club and a lion as ready to pounce in same direction as man with club)

Moakley interprets this 4 card set as the Triumph of Cupid, the woman with cups and man with a club at either side ripe with obvious sexual symbolism, but also of sexual desire constrained within the 'virtuous' bounds of marriage.

In another pattern however, it becomes one of two angels that follows death, one an angelic representation of virtue (temperance with wings), the other a fallen angel (the devil), so one may perhaps read in them the rewards of virtue or vice in the afterlife (they're coming to take you away, ha ha), the jars a symbol of the transition from life to afterlife.

Just after writing this I saw this picture posted on FB by Robert Place, thought I would share the synchronicity:

540x360.jpg


The traitor, Judas (hanged man, XII), Christ risen from Death (XIII), two angels each side of Judas (XIV & XV) awaiting Judgement (XX)

The Survivors by Sascha Schneider, 1896.
 

Abrac

It's hard to know what the old artists has in mind without doing a deep study; but the liquid really isn't necessary for the symbolism. Take the Visconti-Sforza for example, one arm is raised in the act of pouring, and as the four cardinal virtues were usually depicted as a group, everyone would have known what it symbolized; and even if they weren't, the symbolism would have been common knowledge.

The cardinal virtues may have originated as statues, either in or on, old cathedrals where it may have seemed impractical or unnecessary to carve the liquid.
 

kwaw

It's hard to know what the old artists has in mind without doing a deep study; but the liquid really isn't necessary for the symbolism. Take the Visconti-Sforza for example, one arm is raised in the act of pouring, and as the four cardinal virtues were usually depicted as a group,
everyone would have known what it symbolized;

There are not four in the VS but three, and the earliest list does not group them together, but as I said was temperance, caro, amor, fortezza (6,7,8,9 and with Justice way up at the end).

There was a grouping of just the three (fortitude, Justice & temperance), but from the few examples we have, not one commonly depicted at all.

and even if they weren't, the symbolism would have been common knowledge.

Maybe so, but not common enough knowledge (or possibly too common) that such was recorded, otherwise we wouldn't have so much difficulty deciphering it now, would we? Or possibly not common at all, in those instances where there is the grouping of three virtues and not four (or seven, including the theological). Four cardinal or seven including the theological was common, the three Justice, Fortitude and Temperance were themselves considered a group; but I only know of two examples outside of the tarot where such were illustrated, one a 10th century bible, the other, more pertinent, a painting commissioned by Isabelle d'Este, pertinent because some of the earliest painted decks we have are those of the D'Este family. (There are literary definitions a plenty, but I only know of two outside of tarot in which the three are illustrated alone.)

There are other decks that depicted, or may have, the four (cardinal) or seven (cardinal plus theological), but I mentioned in previous post above were the three that became standard; whether in the modern standard order, or the earliest we have (temperance, chariot, lover, fortitude with justice near the end); in neither of which are they 'grouped together'. (And yes I know they are grouped together in another order.)

And even with 'a deep study', it's hard to know what was intended. Without further information speculation is all we have, some of which may be more informed and probable than others, but any of which bar the most clearly anachronistic and outrageous in historical rather than mythological terms, may be possible.

I agree the symbolism of the act of pouring does not require depiction of that being poured. However, that does not mean that the absence or depiction of that being poured may not also have been intended, or most certainly read, as also being symbolic. The absence of fluids and a blind cupid for example, one could wonder whether it is less a triumph of love (cupidity) than one of chastity. (A little bit of sophistry I offer by way of an example, not one I propose nor wish to defend. I admit to knowing nothing, but proffer in vain ignorance, that nothing is worth knowing).
 

Abrac

I know all four aren't in the VS, I was using that as an example where pouring is illustrated without any liquid. You don't have to have the liquid to know what she's doing; the symbolism is the act of pouring.

Pre-tarot I thought depictions of all four as a group were fairly common, in frescoes or statues for example. This would've been the source from which the early tarot artist drew.
 

kwaw

I know all four aren't in the VS, I was using that as an example where pouring is illustrated without any liquid. You don't have to have the liquid to know what she's doing; the symbolism is the act of pouring.

Ah thort ay agreed and sed that? Ah did! Ear:
I agree the symbolism of the act of pouring does not require depiction of that being poured.

Gotta werk on mah kahmoonikayshun skils! (fer a start - their ar fa faa faa two meny silly bulls in kah-moon-i-kay-shun, ah bet its bloody latin - never yused that meny silly bulls wen I wer a kid!)

Pre-tarot I thought depictions of all four as a group were fairly common, in frescoes or statues for example. This would've been the source from which the early tarot artist drew.

Four cordyules or seven with the three I screams (vanila, rum & raison and myrhh (rede yer buybull kids, best edyookayshun in't world!) very, very komern. The groop of three - justis, fortitood and temprance - were fa, faa, faaa less komun (ah mite even say rare, sertunly not medyum nor weldun, not evun medyum-rare - nope, the only word I cud swallow wood be rare).

They're depictashun as a tryoon grupe was the same as they were depictaytid amung the 4 cranyul, or 7 includin the theopofrical, off cause.
 

Parzival

Interesting, informative posts. The painting I am referring to about nothing there between the upper and lower cups/containers is the Pierpont Morgan Visconti Sforza of U. S. Games Systems, printed in Switzerland. There is another inexpensive printing of Race Point Publishing, with Mary Packard's accompanying book -- no fluid/liquid there. Mary Packard wrote that the Temperance woman is about to pour liquid from one jug to another, but I do not see that since the upper jug is horizontally held, as if it were empty.
An interesting exercise is to place the beautiful Visconti Temperance card next to the beautiful Madenie or another Marseille Temperance card. Eureka! From nothing there to a bluish-silvery flow, with the two cups/containers held at first well separated, above right and below left, to the two cups/containers nearly horizontal, much closer together. No angel wings Visconti to angel wings Madenie. (Much more to the comparison/contrast). Definitely an alchemical transformation. Much Mystery there. From Neoplatonism to Freemasonry?
 

kwaw

zephyros said:
Besides which, the idea of balance and moderation is already taken care of in another card, and so well that adding that to Temperance would essentially duplicate them.

The idea of balance and moderation is found in several cards; there is no need that it should apply to just one. It may for example be said apply all the virtue cards, in as much as the classical virtues are rooted in the principle of the Golden rule, or middle way, the balance between two extremes.

Maria Lion
Temperanzia a costei de la natura
che piatosa non e non e crudele
de mezzo tien la strada piu sicura

Maria Lion - she has the nature of Temperance, and is neither merciful nor cruel, taking hold of the middle is the safest way.

From a Tarocchi Appropriati poem, circa. 1520, Venice.

As with other early orderings, Temperance in this poem is place after the pope:

6 - Temperance
7 - Triumphal Chariot
8 - Lovers
9 - Fortitude
 

nisaba

In the earliest Italian Tarots, there is no fluidic flow between the two vessels --only invisibility. What do you suppose this meant to the artists who painted the mysterious first image of Temperance, before the later artists "watered" the space between the two vessels?

It could mean anything. There is the ancient pairing of "oil and wine", the jugs may have stood for that. They may have stood for a trade, the trade of quacksalver or herbalist. It may have been the image of a household servant carrying water from a well to the house, or empty jugs from the house to the well to collect water. I think the number of possibilities that it could have represented in that society at that time make it richer rather than poorer: I'd be vaguely disappointed if we could pin it down absolutely to only one of them.

What interests me at least as much is from later "early" decks, the Marseille decks onwards, the flow has never been realistic, the water has never dropped as it actually does given the force of gravity, but has a trajectory that works neither for flowing water being poured, nor for water being thrown. In crude woodcut Marseille decks, that could be attributed to the difficulty of the medium or just poor draughtsmanship, but why have later artists by-and-large followed that style? What are they saying? Are the events happening in that card operating in impossible dreamspace rather than "real life" (whatever that is)? Are we to notice the dissonance of the impossible flow and be jerked out of normal consciousness by it, much as a shaman is jerked out of this world by a sudden change or stopping of his apprentice's drumming?

These are all questions that bear thinking about.