Art that Reminds You of a Tarot Card

[Joan Marie]

How often do you see a painting or a photograph and immediately are reminded of a tarot card?

In this thread post anything you come across that immediately jumps to your mind as a tarot card.
Whenever possible, please credit the artist or photographer.

I will start with this photo I just saw on Tumblr. Unfortunately, it is uncredited, but right away I saw the 3 of Cups:

3 of cups?

[Pen]

The Lovers by awanqi Heavenly!

[Nemia]

Vermeer's Woman Holding a Balance is always Justice for me - in the background, the Last Judgment!

And Alexander Milov's sculpture for the Burning Man Festival is for me the perfect Six of Cups RWS style:

[Nemia]

Every papal portrait reminds me of the Hierophant.

Titian STUPID ME IT WAS RAPHAEL!!!! paints Julius II, the old fox, with due respect to his position but also with broad hints at the old man's dfficult character.

Velazques gives us a melancholy Innocence X.

And Francis Bacon shakes him - maybe a little revenge for a Catholic childhood...?

Study_after_Velazquez's_Portrait_of_Pope_Innocent_X.jpg (26.36 KiB) Viewed 6519 times

And for Temperance - we have a reminder of sober moderation on Breugel's Peasant Wedding.

A very obvious High Priestess is of course Rossetti's Proserpine.

[Nemia]

Sorry there are simply too many!

Frida Kahlo, the World:

The_Love_Embrace_of_the_Universe,_the_Earth_(Mexico),_Myself,_Diego,_and_Señor_Xolotl.jpg (109.97 KiB) Viewed 6516 times

And the Hanged Man by Frida Kahlo:

What_the_Water_Gave_Me_by_Frida_Kahlo.jpg (66.75 KiB) Viewed 6516 times

"What the Water gave me" is less obvious than other images of suffering - but here, memories and images come from the water...

Isn't she wonderful?

[Pen]

I always think Innocence looks suspicious, manipulative, cunning even...

[Nemia]

Oh yes, they're both power people, grasping hands... neither of them looks like a spiritual leader.

[Papageno]

Breugel's Peasant Wedding evokes RWS 9/cups for me.

[Nemia]

Oh yes! That's great, Papageno. Only in the foreground, with a knowing little smile, a man tries to temper wine (beer?) with water, knowing it won't help and they'll all be drunk before midnight... but happy and satisfied. Even the bride's smug face looks a bit like the man in RWS 9/Cups.

I had to put them next to each other!

[Papageno]

Titian paints Julius II, the so-called "Warrior Pope"

Julius II had a fascinating history, as rich as any renaissance tapestry.

I love Titian, that portrait speaks volumes.

[Nemia]

I love Titian too and I just had my stupid head full of Venice but of course this portrait is by Raphael!!! I taught it dozens of times, how could I be so idiotic and mislead you? Titian only copied it but the original is by poor Raphael

Anyway, I stiill like Titian's version better!

[Papageno]

Only in the foreground, with a knowing little smile, a man tries to temper wine (beer?) with water, knowing it won't help and they'll all be drunk before midnight... but happy and satisfied. Even the bride's smug face looks a bit like the man in RWS 9/Cups.

Personally, the imagery of tempering the beer with water evades me, however, I do love your keen perception of the bride and her expression.
It is priceless.

I see what you mean by the similarities between the bride's expression and the man in the PCS depiction, but I respectfully dispute a direct correlation.
PCS had her moments as an artist, but IMHO, she wasn't skilled enough to convey imagery in it's fullest context.

With that being said, the comparison between the Breugel and the RWS strengthens the broad "LWB meaning" of the RWS 9/Cups.
I emphasize LWB.

[Nemia]

I'm sure there is no connection. But the man in the foreground has the classical pose of Temperance. Not by any chance - Breugel was an educated man and that was his way of making fun of the country yokels and their wild excesses, by adding Temperance. In Breugel's time, everybody knew the iconography of the virtues. Today, we probably only know Justice.

temperance.jpg (63.09 KiB) Viewed 6315 times

A German alabaster relief of Temperance, 16th century:

[Papageno]

I'm sure there is no connection. But the man in the foreground has the classical pose of Temperance. Not by any chance - Breugel was an educated man and that was his way of making fun of the country yokels and their wild excesses, by adding Temperance. In Breugel's time, everybody knew the iconography of the virtues. Today, we probably only know Justice.

I see your point now, given this latest image, yes it is a classic posture.

I think contemporary people are very much familiar with the attributes of the classic Virtues, some just go by different names.
Many people may not have studied the Mantegna imagery but the messages are intact even in the 21st century.

I believe we evidence this all the time in popular media, plays, books, art, advertising, and the Tarot.
Otherwise, this thread would not exist or have any relevance.
But this thread has gone off-track now.....apologies.
"We now return you to your regularly scheduled program"

[Joan Marie]

But this thread has gone off-track

Oh no! It hasn't gone off track at all! This is wonderful!

[Papageno]

I love Titian too and I just had my stupid head full of Venice but of course this portrait is by Raphael!!! I taught it dozens of times, how could I be so idiotic and mislead you? Titian only copied it but the original is by poor Raphael

Anyway, I stiill like Titian's version better!

I mislead myself, I looked up Julius II in Wiki and the caption clearly says "Raphael".

[Papageno]

RWS 9 or 10 of swords, depending on your perspective.
Marvel Studios - Infinity Wars - Dr. Strange and Ebony Maw
As you may (or may not) recall, the Maw says the needles were originally designed for micro-surgery, an obvious twist of irony



The Hermit
Andrew Wyeth “Chester County” 1962 drybrush, watercolor
https://www.brandywine.org/museum/exhib ... retrospect



RWS 9 of coins
For me, this is one of the more compelling portraits of heiress/socialite Marjorie Merriweather Post. The pose is more relaxed than some of the other portraits and the depiction of furs and jewelry is comparatively restrained.



RWS 3 or 8 of pentacles, depending on your perspective.
“The Artist Morot In His Studio” by Gustave Caillebotte

[Joan Marie]

The Star!!

I also got this from Tumblr where sadly , many things go un-credited.
But oh, isn't she a beauty?

I imagine it's a film still or maybe more likely, something from the theater or cabaret stage.

[Papageno]

I also got this from Tumblr where sadly , many things go un-credited.
But oh, isn't she a beauty?

I imagine it's a film still or maybe more likely, something from the theater or cabaret stage.

It evokes Busby Berkeley, or at least that era.
The curtains do hint at a stage production, like a cabaret or maybe even burlesque.

edited to add:

actually it looks more like something from the Ziegfeld Follies

[Joan Marie]

Star or Empress?

This is Hedy Lamarr in a still from the 1941 film, "Ziegfeld Girl."

The Star connotation is obvious, but she also makes me think of the Empress.

RWS Empress

[Nemia]

Oh, I love Hedy Lamarr, and I'm sure she's the Star. She was a brilliantly intelligent woman and invented something I never understood that made decades later possible to develop mobile phones. A visionary and a beauty.

great examples. The dancer or actress with the star head reminds me of Frau Luna.... the operetta by Paul Lincke.

Which would be the positive side of the Moon - the dreams...


Another obvious candidate for the Moon would be the old children's book Peterchens Mondfahrt.

Here, the Moon is more frightening, and the dreams become darker. The beetle Herr Sumsemann reminds me of the crawfish climbing on land....

[Papageno]

This is Hedy Lamarr in a still from the 1941 film, "Ziegfeld Girl."

The Star connotation is obvious, but she also makes me think of the Empress.

Yes, visually it can go either way, Star or Empress.

However, if we consider the personality of Heddy Lamarr, the person, she might be better suited as High Priestess.

As you know, her real-life story was rather harrowing, she narrowly escaped the clutches of a monstrous husband but she was gifted with both brains and beauty, she wasn't just a shallow pretty face.

In fact, her intellect was far more impressive than her beauty.
Variations of the patented technologies she helped develop for the Allies during WWII are still held in high esteem.

If she had been born in a different era or under different circumstances, she might well have been a Nobel Prize winner instead of a movie star.

[Joan Marie]

In fact, her intellect was far more impressive than her beauty.

And that is really saying something!

[Nemia]

In the wonderful Cosmic, the High Priestess is a young Greta Garbo,

Hedy Lamarr appears, as far as I can see, as Strength.

The artist used illustrations by Warwick Goble for Temperance and the Star, as far as I can tell.

But Temperance might also be influenced by photographs of Mata Hari.

I love this deck and have hunted down over the years many of Lösche's inspirations for this wonderful deck. Don't believe when people say it's a celebrity deck or a gimmick! The artist searched popular visual culture for tarot archetypes and found them.


I love the inspiration he took from the ballet l'apres midi d'un faune:

with the wonderful Tanaquil le Clerq

and here Melissa Hamilton - obviously this choreography was used for the 6 of Cups.

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I'm pretty sure I'm the only one who identified this. The Internet is horribly full with wrong associations, often quoting "stars" who were in pre-school when the deck was made!

The creative mind of Norbert Lösche saw tarot archetypes everywhere, and that's so fascinating.

[Nemia]

I didn't want to put too many pictures into one post, but look at how he used a painting by Bogereau:

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for the Ten of Cups:

Another art work he took "as is" - the golden bust of Charlemagne. He lived in Aachen then, Charlemagne's old capital, and I grew up not far from it. Everybody in the are knows that bust and they still sell special sweets there with pictures of the old Emperor.

It was obvious where the old man had to go.

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Here is the special kind of sweet cake for Christmas, only made in Aachen: