Renaissance Canon article mentions early Tarot

Readers of this forum might find this article interesting
http://media.www.thelaf.com/media/s.../Ae/Renaissance.Canon.Exclusive-3978218.shtml

Thank you for posting this article. I believe we can learn from Ahl's quote: "Banners, tarot cards and frescos were a few of the many mediums artists used for their paintings. "[They] expressed political, historical and familiar ideology." This should tell us that these various sources of art, such as the tarot, were the allegorical expression for the political, historical and spiritual views of the artists of the time - whoever they may have been and whatever their ideological positions were - and not simply the redundant expression of orthodox Christian art. If the artists held unorthodox views or had other historical information to present, then we would expect that the symboloy in the cards would have meaning beyond their traditional biblical references. Since not everyone agreed on a single theology, why shouldn't we expect that the symbolism in the cards would also reflect such diversity - especially if such associations can be made?

foolish said:

Thank you for posting this article. I believe we can learn from Ahl's quote: "Banners, tarot cards and frescos were a few of the many mediums artists used for their paintings. "[They] expressed political, historical and familiar ideology." This should tell us that these various sources of art, such as the tarot, were the allegorical expression for the political, historical and spiritual views of the artists of the time - whoever they may have been and whatever their ideological positions were - and not simply the redundant expression of orthodox Christian art. If the artists held unorthodox views or had other historical information to present, then we would expect that the symboloy in the cards would have meaning beyond their traditional biblical references. Since not everyone agreed on a single theology, why shouldn't we expect that the symbolism in the cards would also reflect such diversity - especially if such associations can be made?

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My bold. This is what I have always belived Plus, during those times and those places artistic expressions did include Christian (catholic) iconography.

Bee

That just makes sense to me. Why should we assume that, in the world of allegorical art, images should be taken at "face value" or simply take their meaning from their most common representations elsewhere in the art world? I think we should continue to look for situations which may suggest a contrary or alternative interpretation, since not all artists share the same ideology.

I have just finished a book by Linda Harris (who has several graduate degrees in Art History), called The Secret Heresy of Hieronymus Bosch, in which she presents detailed explanations of how Bosch's paintings, from the early 16th century, contain iexplicit mages of the artist's Cathar background. As she explains, his conventional Christian appearance was necessary as a "cover" to remain working in society, and his paintings were not suspected of heretical imagery at the time, although, when pointed out, we can clearly see what she is referring to.

This is just another example of how some artists "hid" their ideology within conventional art in order to remain in business (and perhaps out of jail). I think that when we see similar imagery used in the tarot, it at least deserves another look - and those who pretend to know all the answers should not feel threatened by a healthy discussion of these images.

By the way, two of Bosch's paintings, "The Conjurer" and "The Prodigal Son" at Rotterdam, have a very similar likeness to The Magician and The Fool (in the Marseilles decks) respectively. I'm sorry that I can't provide the pictures myself, but perhaps someone who knows how to upload them could post them for others to see.

If these two images can be associated with heretical ideaology, then it would make sense that other cards may in fact also contain similar perspectives.

foolish said:

I have just finished a book by Linda Harris (who has several graduate degrees in Art History), called The Secret Heresy of Hieronymus Bosch, in which she presents detailed explanations of how Bosch's paintings, from the early 16th century, contain iexplicit mages of the artist's Cathar background.

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Hm ... does Linda Harris speak of "Heresy" or of "Catharic background" with some clearer reference to the earlier Albigensian community?

Indeed, it seems, that she reflected this. This website ...

http://www.boschwebsite.com/Interpretation_Harris.html

... takes some critical distance with ...

"The whole thing is such total nonsense, stretching rubbery interpretation well beyond its breaking point."

Well, naturally, I don't know, if that is a worthwhile commentary, so I better check the name of the author.
Oh, that's "A Hieronymus Bosch website created by Adam McLean" ... and Adam McLean is a well respected author about medieval esoteric stuff with a very, very extended website about the rather difficult topic "alchemy".

http://www.levity.com/alchemy/

... and from this it's rather obvious (at least me would assume so), that Linda Harris probably has bad cards in this question.

The only thing that's obvious to me is that, as in most cases, there are differences of opinion. That's life. It seems like arrogant academics to insist that only you have the real answer to the truth of the matter, and therefore have the right to shut down anyone who dares to differ. We see this in religion, in politics... and even in certain tarot circles. The reality is that Mrs. Harris has her points, which she makes quite well. She interprets most of the images in Bosch's works based on the way they seemingly convey Bogomil-dualistic-Cathar ideas. Is she wrong? I guess that's in the eye of the reader. It seems like art is less absolute in its truth than other things.

foolish said:

The only thing that's obvious to me is that, as in most cases, there are differences of opinion. That's life. It seems like arrogant academics to insist that only you have the real answer to the truth of the matter, and therefore have the right to shut down anyone who dares to differ. We see this in religion, in politics... and even in certain tarot circles. The reality is that Mrs. Harris has her points, which she makes quite well. She interprets most of the images in Bosch's works based on the way they seemingly convey Bogomil-dualistic-Cathar ideas. Is she wrong? I guess that's in the eye of the reader. It seems like art is less absolute in its truth than other things.

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... .-) ... as you was so free to introduce Linda Harris with "who has several graduate degrees in Art History", you're also so free to detect the competence or not-competence of Adam McLean in his many publications and for instance also at wikipedia ...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adam_McLean

... where it is not written, that he has "several graduate degrees" in anything, but some other information possibly of more relevance.

Very impressive bio. So, I guess the logic is that since he seems to have a great deal of knowledge about alchemy and hermeticism, he should also know more than other people about other subjects too. According to the jacket of her book, "Lynda Harris... has a B.A. in History of Art from Bryn Mawr College in Pennsylvania, and graduate degrees from Boston University and London's Courtauld Institute of Art. Her main reserach was on paintings of the Renaissance period. She has worked in museums but also spent many years giving classes to extramural students in London."

So, I guess you are saying that, even though she is making statements about a subject that she apparently has studied for years, we should dissmiss it all because of Mr. McClean's opinion in the matter. O.K. Everyone's entitled to believe whomever they wish to believe. But in the same token, eveyone is entitled to voice an opinion - which, I believe, should be judged by the persuasiveness of the argument, and not because of someone else's contrary opinion.

I think you also missed my point about the two tarot cards which seem to have an uncanny similarity to the two paintings by Bosch. It remains a possibility that the artists may have shared a similar ideology in the creation of these images.