catboxer
I wouldn't even want to guess why Waite said there were four streams when Colman-Smith's image clearly shows five. I've given up trying to figure out how Mr. Waite's complicated mind worked. Just unscrambling his writing is hard enough.
I do know that I love this picture. It's one of Colman-Smith's most striking and graceful images.
And it's certainly the Grail, but even more it's the eucharistic chalice. The symbolism the artist adds to the traditional image makes that unmistakable. As such, it represents the simple idea of God's love, and love in general.
The model Colman-Smith drew from, the Ace of the various Marseille decks, also clearly showed a communion chalice, though it was very plain and lacked the additional symbols she included, the dove, wafer, streams, the dew drops, and the hand of the deity.
There have been only a few exceptions to this depiction over the centuries. The Visconti-Sforza Ace of Cups, for instance, shows a fountain instead.
But the Marseille (and Colman-Smith) pictures draw on images from all the way back to the beginning of cards in Europe, and share the basic iconography of the earliest known European example of this picture, from the Italy 2 Moorish deck of playing cards, possibly made before 1400 and certainly before the advent of tarot cards. You can see them at the excellent site "Andy's Playing Cards" (http://it.geocities.com/a_pollett/cards77.htm). Scroll down and you'll see a very simplified Ace, with a semi-circle decorated with straight lines at the bottom of the cup. This part of the image was carried over into the Marseille decks, making this lovely Ace one of the more timeless icons of the Rider-Waite.
When it comes to interpretation, I like to keep the possible meanings as simple and elastic as possible. In the case of this card, I generally see it as the desire for love, or the beginnings of a new love. The subject who draws this card is searching for love, and that implies a person whose heart is open and vulnerable enough to accept love. If God is love, the concepts behind this card are close to God.
Colman-Smith has here taken a simple image with deep historical roots and elaborated and completed it with great skill, imparting to the finished product a meaning no one could possibly miss.
I do know that I love this picture. It's one of Colman-Smith's most striking and graceful images.
And it's certainly the Grail, but even more it's the eucharistic chalice. The symbolism the artist adds to the traditional image makes that unmistakable. As such, it represents the simple idea of God's love, and love in general.
The model Colman-Smith drew from, the Ace of the various Marseille decks, also clearly showed a communion chalice, though it was very plain and lacked the additional symbols she included, the dove, wafer, streams, the dew drops, and the hand of the deity.
There have been only a few exceptions to this depiction over the centuries. The Visconti-Sforza Ace of Cups, for instance, shows a fountain instead.
But the Marseille (and Colman-Smith) pictures draw on images from all the way back to the beginning of cards in Europe, and share the basic iconography of the earliest known European example of this picture, from the Italy 2 Moorish deck of playing cards, possibly made before 1400 and certainly before the advent of tarot cards. You can see them at the excellent site "Andy's Playing Cards" (http://it.geocities.com/a_pollett/cards77.htm). Scroll down and you'll see a very simplified Ace, with a semi-circle decorated with straight lines at the bottom of the cup. This part of the image was carried over into the Marseille decks, making this lovely Ace one of the more timeless icons of the Rider-Waite.
When it comes to interpretation, I like to keep the possible meanings as simple and elastic as possible. In the case of this card, I generally see it as the desire for love, or the beginnings of a new love. The subject who draws this card is searching for love, and that implies a person whose heart is open and vulnerable enough to accept love. If God is love, the concepts behind this card are close to God.
Colman-Smith has here taken a simple image with deep historical roots and elaborated and completed it with great skill, imparting to the finished product a meaning no one could possibly miss.
Do tell more!