Working on a recreation of the Mamluk cards

trzes

Thanks so much for your friendly comments, earthair and dancing_moon, and sorry for answering so late.

I love the idea of one line of a poem in each card, although this time I might stick closer to the original. But I am already gathering ideas for a more free interpretation of the mamluk pattern (there can't be too many mamluk decks, he he).

There won't be a poll, but of course your opinion is much appreciated, dancing_moon :). I see your point that a deck without flowers wouldn't be a real mamluk style deck. So I sat down immediately to add all the flower stuff to another card and see what it looks like. I have now two cards (king of coins and 2nd deputy of polo sticks) with flowers. For each of the two cards I pasted four versions together in a file: No flowers, pale flowers with grey lines, pale flowers with black lines, full saturated flowers with black lines.

I do have an issue with the overwhelming density of stuff with all the flowers included. This is why I tried the pale colors. Not sure yet what to think of this idea...

ETA: Grammar (English is a weird language, where 'to' 'two' and 'too' proncouce the same but the wrong spelling will spoil the whole grammar, pah }))
 

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dancing_moon

The rightmost designs are simply the most gorgeous, no doubt about that. :) Yes, this kind of excessive overabundance may look overwhelming to our simplistic 21-century eyes, but it's very characteristic both of the region and the period. Check this out, for instance:

fragment of a Mamluk carpet

Not just busy - full-color busy. :D
 

Lee

Hi trzes,

All your cards are superb, but I agree with dancing_moon, the right-most ones in your latest post are the best. :)
 

trzes

I think I agree. It has to be the version with full color flowers.

I dunno if our 21th century view is simplistic though :). It all seems a matter of what we are used to. I would be interesting to hear the 15th century mamluk's stance on overwhelmingly busy overabundance after watching adverts on today's TV for some time or waiting for 20 minutes at piccadilly circus. My problems with the flower patterns would be likely to appear minor in comparison :D

And thanks very much, dancing_moon for the carpet image. This is likely to make a brilliant card back :cool:
 

dancing_moon

This is likely to make a brilliant card back :cool:

Sure, why not? There's no copyright on it, I imagine. :cool4:

Speaking of what we are used to (which is a totally valid point), you may want to google images for something like 'Mamluk art', for inspiration and a better 'feel' for the style/epoch. Not to mention that some art pieces are simply breathtaking and a delight to look at. :)
 

blue_fusion

These new ones look beautiful! I love the fact that they look clean yet not too digital-y.
 

trzes

These new ones look beautiful! I love the fact that they look clean yet not too digital-y.

Thanks for your kind words :)

I have finished the designs of all cards except flower patterns now, and I have just put up a website about Mamluk cards in general as well as about my project. It also contains some new insights about the number of court cards per suit. A few sections of the site are still empty, but I'll do my best to fill the gaps soon.
 

dancing_moon

That's a very neat website, trzes! :thumbsup: What you've got there already is fascinating, and I'll be looking forward to more.

Lots of inspiration to you!
 

MikeTheAltarboy

Amazigng!
 

trzes

Very belated thanks, dancing_moon and MikeTheAltarBoy.

I am back and working on my deck project again. First I updated the website. There is a brief history section now. I have also added the section about the arabic inscriptions. And I extended the bit about the actual reconstruction. Finally the font is bigger now to make the site more suitable for modern devices like smartphones.

Im on all these flower patterns now.