The Pure Aestetics of the Marseilles - and a bit of a "game"

No historyreferences please..
All I want from this is to get an idea on what in the aestetics on the Marseilles-cards that draws you (whomever desires to take the time to answer).
Please keep it simple, I'm still very much a beginner and have no time or freedom of mind at this time to learn long lessons of how things began..
Little tidbits are more than welcome ofcourse but any deep detail will be lost on me I'm afraid.

With that said, here is what I think;


The deceptive simplicity of the Marseilles-cards brings to mind childhood and the way the world was oh so simple, and yet so full of meaning.
A tree was simply a brown trunk and a green head when drawn, and then one ventured closer and found little branches, leaves, flowers and fruits. None of this had to be detailed in a drawing in order for anyone to know it was there.

The same rang true for people.
Drawn, they are simply a head propped onto a body with two arms and two legs. Nothing more and not in the least more difficult than that.
To make a difference in what this person one drew was like, it was simply a matter of turning the lips, shifting the eyes or positioning the arms and hands. And if a certain part of the body was more important it was simply enhanced. A person who travelled would have very long legs and large feet, while a person that carried things would have long arms and large hands to fit everything that needed to be moved.
Little things in the posture gave so much away as to what the picture was about that it did not matter in the least if it was anatomically correct or the right type of leaf to match the fruit in the branches.

The same feeling is given to me by the Tarot de Marseilles.
A kind of "raw image" that holds many hidden details that do not need to be drawn out in detail for them to be visible.

I can "see" the child hiding amongst L'imperatisses skirts and hear the thumping as s/he bangs on the shield like a drum (and hear L'imperatisses stifled laughter as she tries to remain poised inspite of the beloved interruption).
I can "see" the musky painted walls of the cavern L'hermite is walking through on his journey to the underworld (next time he is in a forest and is walking towards a cabin, and the next he is standing just at the door to the kitchen looking for a midnight snack).
I can "see" the light playing on the children (or young men) in Le Soleil and hear the sound of a griffin, just out of sight of the card that is calling them to adventures, whisking them off in the next second to the pyramids of Egypt where they may venture into the passages and might run into L'hermite and L'empereur as they meet to determine the fate of the kingdom.
I can "see" the smile on Le Papes face as he sees a loved one and starts thinking of what a lovely time he will have after the sermon, and all the while he never misses a beat in all his repetitious talking.
I can "see" the gentle curves of the swords in the pips and feel them sliding against eachother, sharpening or dulling eachother as they move and shift.
I can "see" the teardrop in the eye of the lover when he realises he will have to choose and thereby loose one of his loves.

I could go on.. but to leave some space for you.
What can you "see"?

Pure Aesthetics of the Marseilles

I agree with the "deceptive simplicity" and the "raw image" quality of the Marseilles Tarot. Temperance has a profound, dynamic focus, not complicated with esoteric symbol ad infinitum. The vibratory strand between the two jars captivates my concentration, without need of extaneous alchemic complexities, although other variations of the Archetype can offer insights.The Magician performs table magic. The Papa blesses. The Hermit's golden light radiantly pours .The World makes more mandorla than some modern egg-like mandorlas. In short, no pretentious, superficial cleverness. A great Poem rather than a translation of a great Poem. Pristine Inspiration.

Sheesh, Eco, your take is awesome! I'm not too good at that, "seeing" things that are more implied, but when you talked of the swords, in that case I "hear" them sliding against each other: kind of a "chink-zzzzzzzzzzzh" you know!

The Marseilles Garden

Thanks Eco ~

This is great. The Marseilles pips for some reason always bring a garden to mind. I have the Fournier as my main Marseilles and the colours reinforce this image of garden.

The deniers and batons both show different shades of green in the background but it is so present it is more than background. How many shades of green do you see in a garden? The coupes have a background the colour of soil in which flowers grow. The coupes are ornamental and practical. They hold the water for the dry soil but we can drink from them as well. The deniers look like paving stones. Where do they lead amongst all these plants? Are we allowed to step on them or we simply use them as a guide? The batons could be the weaving of plant stems or young saplings. Or they could be trellis supporting the growth of new plant life. Is the blue of the epees the sky or a lagoon in the garden? And are those elegant shapes within birds or fish? It could be either. Sometime the sky and water are indivisable.

And the flowers! Everywhere different shapes and colours, offering a feast to the senses - touch, sight, scent. It all fits together.

So I wander here and wonder who I shall meet. Will the folk to whom these gardens belong reveal themselves and welcome me? I wait with excitement and expectation.

What a lovely thread eco!

I love the Marseilles decks and I 'see' too.

I love that when I look at the Ace Coins I see a great big brass door handle, one turn and where does it lead? I love that the Reyne de basons is holding a violin and her creative side is playing for me. She is making music! That the Roy de bastons is holding a compass and the point marks the spot but the top can turn 100 degrees and encompass the world and that La Maison dieu has smiling people who are picking up their lottery winnings! Pennies from heaven.

It has a simplicity and is not affected by anyone elses vision. We are not told what we have to see. It is ours to take and do as we want with.

~

It is so curious that you should start this discussion now, Eco. I have been wondering about this:

Maybe some people, mostly (but not only) those who hate the idea that the TdM should be considered as a “reference tarot”, think that those who stand for it with all their harts believe it was somehow “given” to mankind in a metaphysical way. I’ve been getting the impression that the “Marseilles lovers” talk about it like a very devote Christian would talk about the Ten Commandments: God gave them to Men in a complete form, destined to remain untouched, on a cloudy afternoon (seems the sky was a bit darkened), directly into the trembling hands of a guy who was then bond to transmit them to others in the purest form possible.

And I don’t think this is good. Tarot, and the TdM in particular, was certainly not forged in Heaven, or in any upper spiritual realm, and then given to mankind in a complete form, as a divine burst of inspiration, coming upon a given man or group of men, whose names are now lost, but were the “makers” of the very first deck – that one representing the Ur-Tarot, of course.

Tarot images are archetypical, almost everyone with agree more or less to this assertion. Now, what I personally think about the images in the TdM is that they are more archetypical than in the other decks; that is, they refer to the most basic principles constituting the Human psyche. That moment lost in time, when a man (a woman? ) raised his head, looked around, stretched his consciousness as one would stretch his stiff joints upon waking up, and understood the world as a series of individual images – and thus started naming things. A house (a cave, a shelter. Earth. The mother’s womb. A cradle. A grave). A tree (the male phallus. Life as an active principle. The upper direction. A tower). Another man (a central body with five terminations. The upright position. Domination over all that does not stand). The Sun, the starts, the moon (oh, the moon…). The colours – red as blood, white as milk, blue as the sky, black as the night and deep earth, yellow as the sun and light, green as vegetable life. And also the changeable qualities of water, the cyclical changes of weather, day and night, the growth of the crops and the alterations time imposes on everything that is alive. And the opposite – the inalterability of everything that seems to be inert. Life as movement, death as immobility.

From here comes the inspiration that forged Tarot imagery. And, in this sense, it does not matter it was conceived as a game, as a means to both hide and reveal esoteric mysteries, or as a tool for divination (I believe, by the way, in all this explanations at the same time). Also, in this sense the TdM is universal – belongs to Everyman, as, I believe, Helvetica would say…

Silvia

smleite said:

Tarot, and the TdM in particular, was certainly not forged in Heaven, or in any upper spiritual realm, and then given to mankind in a complete form, as a divine burst of inspiration, coming upon a given man or group of men, whose names are now lost, but were the “makers” of the very first deck – that one representing the Ur-Tarot, of course.

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Silvia, I greatly respect what you have to say, but beg to disagree without upset.

Tarot along with Everything was forged in the Spiritual realm.

The Tarot of Marseilles is not the Ur-Tarot.

My understanding is that the Ur-Tarot is the Tarot as it exists in divine realms. It does not exist as such and never has existed in the physical. It is rather the impluse that drives the creation of every version of the Tarot in existance.

We could as easily discuss the Ur-Chair. Every chair that has ever existed has been created to fullfil the desire to sit in comfort and/or style. Every Tarot deck ever created was to fullfil the desire for the Ur-Tarot.

For me, and perhaps for some others, I believe the Tarot of Marseille most closely fullfils the desire for the Ur-Tarot of any tarot deck in existance.

Your mileage may vary.

If you seek one true tarot for yourself, I would recommend you create it.

What Silvia says is most interesting and I have just been reading about the Ur-Tarot on another thread.

But is this thread about that or has Eco simply asked what we see in these images?

Respectfullly - just a thought. I would really like to hear what other people "see' in some of these archetypal images.

Edited to add that I see Silvia has given some descriptions of archetypal images in the Marseilles. I am a little sensitive to another controversial discussion starting here LOL.

OOps for a minute I thought I was in the "Let's Marseilles" forum. Edited to correct!.

smleite said:

And I don’t think this is good. Tarot, and the TdM in particular, was certainly not forged in Heaven, or in any upper spiritual realm, and then given to mankind in a complete form, as a divine burst of inspiration, coming upon a given man or group of men, whose names are now lost, but were the “makers” of the very first deck – that one representing the Ur-Tarot, of course.

Click to expand...

There's a lot of this, and it's been the subject of discussions here --- some time ago I posted a thread about intégrisme which was sort of along the same lines.

Again, I find myself drawn to the analogy of folklore and folk music. The Waite-Smith and Crowley-Harris decks, and all that comes after them strike me as relating to the traditional decks --- which I view as somewhat of a broader school, not necessarily limited to the TdM --- much as, say, Bob Dylan's It's a Hard Rain Gonna Fall bears to Lord Randall. (a comparison). The newer versions have all been stamped by strong personalities and remade to fit their ideas. For those who share the assumptions behind these new versions, this is insight and clarity. For those who do not share those same assumptions, they become unwelcome intrusions.

This is what traditional decks mean to me, and why I like them. Not because they are pure and exalted. Because they are plain and homely. They do not carry Revelation in a pure state like fire from heaven. They have roots; they develop gradually. I like the simplicity, the lack of assumptions, and the lack of pretension in the traditional decks. You can take to them whatever teaching you wish, be it RWS-derived, Kabbalistic, Pythagorean, traditional cartomancy, or something you invented yesterday, and these cards will serve each such user equally well.

P.S. Advertising what sounds to me like a lovely book from Bill Duncan, here is a beautiful aesthetic statement that comes close to capturing my own outlook on things. Even if it doesn't seem particularly Gallic or Mediterranean. It is worth preserving and circulating on its own merit, even if its relevance may be dubious; it's as beautiful a bit of writing as you're likely to find in a book blurb.