Robert M Place: I'm curious

[Charlie Brown]

Is there anyone who would care to comment on his work and thought? I'm just coming across him for the first time and am ignorant, but intrigued.

[Cheers]

I like his art but it gets old, it all looks the same after awhile. He has a considerable output but much of it is mediocre in my opinion. If your knowledge level isn't that great you can probably learn some things from him, but don't take everything he says a gospel.

[Rachelcat]

I agree, his art is beautiful but can come across as cold (and a bit repetitive).

My favorite of his decks is the Tarot of the Saints, with lots of saints' stories and Bible stories to work with.

As far as his books, I love them. Mostly because they seem to agree with my take on tarot meanings and methods, influenced by Renaissance theories and concepts. Like the cardinal and theological virtues, estates of man, and stuff like that. Obviously, in this tarot biz, we're used to dealing with lots of assumptions and surmises, but I think his info is quite plausible and palatable. His history won't lead you too far astray!

[Charlie Brown]

I agree, his art is beautiful but can come across as cold (and a bit repetitive).

My favorite of his decks is the Tarot of the Saints, with lots of saints' stories and Bible stories to work with.

I imagine one can say the same about me.

[Charlie Brown]

Like the cardinal and theological virtues, estates of man, and stuff like that.

As I said, I know very little about what he says, but the little I know led me to Plato's allegory of the chariot and some Neoplatonist theory of the soul type stuff that I found pretty interesting. At the very least, I'm thinking he might turn me on to some new things even if I ultimately don't apply them to my reading.

I have to say, everyone knows I try to avoid deck lust, but the Tarot of the Sevenfold Mystery is really calling to me. OTOH, my Victorian Romantic barely gets enough use and my Tabula Mundi is definitely under-utilized. That's the downside of focusing more on Marseille.

[katrinka]

Not a fan.

He tends to depict everybody a pink-skinned white person, even if they weren't (the Buddha Tarot comes to mind) and that's very wrong, by my lights.

On a less-important note, he made a Lenormand once with RWS insets. I don't do anything with the pips other than consider the suits, but RWS is just all wrong for it. You have to remember Lenormand is German - so you don't look at them the same way you do with French or Italian-based things. The Game of Hope deck shows both a French suited inset and a German suited one on each card. Lenormand’s Spades are associated with happiness, youth and growth because they're leaves. Clubs show upset and loss because they're acorns. Nobody bothers with acorns unless they're starving - acorns are associated with hardship. Not exactly a great match for Swords and Wands, respectively.

[Tag Jorrit]

If you like his art, go for it. Some people like black velvet Elvis paintings.

[Charlie Brown]

If you like his art, go for it. Some people like black velvet Elvis paintings.

I love black velvet Elvis paintings, almost as much as I do those dogs who play poker and pool.

[katrinka]

Can I get poker playing dogs on velvet?

[Joan Marie]

Can I get poker playing dogs on velvet?

Keep an eye out for my next Kickstarter: Tarot of the Velvet Elvis & Friends

The cards will be, of course, poker size. And his friends are nothing but hound dogs.

If we meet the stretch goal, the deck will come in a black velvet box in a blue suede bag.

[Tag Jorrit]

Can I get poker playing dogs on velvet?

Keep an eye out for my next Kickstarter: Tarot of the Velvet Elvis & Friends

The cards will be, of course, poker size. And his friends are nothing but hound dogs.

If we meet the stretch goal, the deck will come in a black velvet box in a blue suede bag.

I'll support that one -- but only if the blue suede bag is shaped like a shoe.

[katrinka]

Can I get poker playing dogs on velvet?

Keep an eye out for my next Kickstarter: Tarot of the Velvet Elvis & Friends

The cards will be, of course, poker size. And his friends are nothing but hound dogs.

If we meet the stretch goal, the deck will come in a black velvet box in a blue suede bag.

I'll support that one -- but only if the blue suede bag is shaped like a shoe.

I can't help falling in love with this idea.

[stronglove]

Is there anyone who would care to comment on his work and thought? I'm just coming across him for the first time and am ignorant, but intrigued.

i kinda like him, at first i thought i wouldn’t, because of what others said here before, but then i bought the alchemical, the sevenfold mystery and his latest book, ‘the tarot, magic, alchemy hermeticism and neoplatonism’. have used the sevenfold and was surprised at the readings i got from it, didn’t expect to connect to it as much as i did. and i love his book, it is his accumulated and processed knowledge of tarot and i don’t take it as the gospel, but i find it well written and entertaining.
so i would recommend both the sevenfold and the book, but i don’t know if this recommendation, coming from me, will make you order them instantly or avoid them like the plague.....

[dodalisque]

Well, I for one would like to speak up for Robert Place. If we think of the tarot as originating from the early Renaissance then I think his art has the same classical precision we associate with that period, like Greek statues. I know he constantly acknowledges his debt to the paintings of Edward Burne-Jones the English pre-Raphaelite. I discovered his Alchemical Tarot, the first edition which is quite different to the three subsequent editions, in a beautiful coffee table tarot book put together by Rachel Pollack. Robert Place's artwork for me immediately had an authoritative quality that all the other decks featured in the book seemed to lack. Place has described it many times in interviews, but his inspiration for that deck, his first was quite strange and like a religious awakening.

His experience of making that deck turned him into a bon fide tarot scholar, and he takes the trouble to go back to the original sources to make genuine discoveries about tarot history and symbolism and the philosophical underpinnings of the deck. Most of the other commentators glibly throwing around facts about tarot history are usually quoting him, repeating something that Place has actually taken the trouble to research. However I do find that over the years his love of learning may have blunted his original inspiration. I think he probably now makes more money organising tarot tours and giving lectures that through the sale of decks or from selling original art. I believe he also used to make jewelry. His ideas have ossified into a system that he continually tinkers with.

His Dracula Tarot was given blockbuster promotion when the Dracula craze was at its height, but it didn't sell. Too ingenious for Dracula fans, and too tainted by popular culture for tarot people. It's very clever - squeezing out a whole tarot from a single bad novel. He remains very close to the Rider-Waite system but has quibbles and has moved with recent fashion by incorporating TdM elements into his card meanings. I could talk till the cows came home about Robert Place> His later work is not quite so interesting and his Lenormand with Rachel Pollack - the dream team - was a bit horrible, I thought. Too clever to be a Lenormand.

[katrinka]

His later work is not quite so interesting and his Lenormand with Rachel Pollack - the dream team - was a bit horrible, I thought. Too clever to be a Lenormand.

In all fairness, that one started out to not be Lenormand. It was originally conceived as an alchemical/mythologial oracle, kind of Belline/E'ltynne-like. Then the publishers decided they should make it a Lenormand, since Lenormand was breaking big in the US/UK at the time. At first it was referred to as "Lenormand inspired", whatever that means. Then it shifted to "Lenormand with added layers of interpretation", which is worse. The Clouds are confusion, unpleasantness, and trouble, for instance. If you add a person playing a kithara, heavenly music coming in the clouds, you've added nothing but contradiction. The Tree is dead, there's gods and angels all over the deck, it would have worked as an oracle - but as a Lenormand, it's a hot mess.

I don't know what Rachel thought of the pressure from the publisher, she "kept her cards close." But Bob Place was apparently not happy with it. Some people were on facebook comparing the Lenormand images to those on Italian biribissi boards. (I call that "Here Is A Thing That Looks Like Another Thing" - a kind of game that neither proves nor disproves a connection between the two things, but can be mildly interesting with subjects like Marseilles Tarot. With Lenormand's Ship, Birds, House, etc., not so interesting. ) He spent the time leading up to the publication of the Burning Serpent posting images of every antique board game he could find on facebook, rather than investigating to find out even the first thing about the Lenormand system. Maybe it was his way of rebelling, but people were laughing at him. 2013 was a weird year.

I wouldn't say that the images are "too clever" for a Lenormand. But they're definitely too chimerical.

[dodalisque]

Thanks Katrinka, that cleared some things up for me. I am new to the Lenormand. Robert Place is a passionate student of the tarot, and deserves to stand next to Rachel Pollack, Mary Greer, and Enrique Enriquez as one of the most important figures in the tarot world. His latest book is the summation of many years of devoted study. It has the catchy title: "Tarot, Magic, Alchemy, Hermeticism, and Neoplatonism", and is a nearly 700 page tome. It contains a few irritating typos but I'm sure Robert does all his own proof-reading as well as everything else. He is a one man operation, putting address labels on packages and licking stamps to send out his many books and decks. The information contained in the book is dense and fascinating but may seem dry and scholarly to some. His artwork as usual is chaste and beautiful and subtle. The images come alive in readings in spite of their apparent simplicity. The Tarot of Sevenfold Vision seems to have grown out of the basic visual vocabularly of his Alchemical Tarot, but for some reason I prefer the Alchemical, especially the hard-to-find first edition. Don't be scared by the idea of an Alchemical Tarot. No special knowledge of alchemy is needed to read with the cards, but the deck does open up when we study the ideas behind it, and how they demonstrate the similarity between alchemical concepts and the structure of the tarot.

[katrinka]

Don't be scared by the idea of an Alchemical Tarot. No special knowledge of alchemy is needed to read with the cards, but the deck does open up when we study the ideas behind it, and how they demonstrate the similarity between alchemical concepts and the structure of the tarot.

I'm not a Place fan, obviously, but I agree that alchemical decks are certainly nothing to be scared of! The Tarot of the Holy Light and the Sibyl of the Heart are excellent - the former is a deep dive, the latter has an elegant simplicity. Adam McLean's Alchemical Emblems also looks good, but alas, I missed that one. This one looks like it might be good - it's Wirth-y. https://czechhermetics.bigcartel.com/pr ... fanus-abba

[TarotByArwen]

Robert is a scholar and a gentleman and a really good dancer. He is, first and foremost, a historian who knows his stuff.

I like his art. Yes it is similar in the same way Stephanie Law, Lisa Hunt, and that fella Picasso are similar. I read "similar" as identifiably his.

He works a lot with Rachel Pollack, another well-known scholar. Rachel's work speaks for itself.

I do appreciate the humor in this thread. But little sister, don't you do what your big sister done!

[katrinka]

I do appreciate the humor in this thread. But little sister, don't you do what your big sister done!

A little more bite and a little less bark?
A little less fight and a little more spark?

[Cocobird55]

Is there anyone who would care to comment on his work and thought? I'm just coming across him for the first time and am ignorant, but intrigued.

I have a few of his decks left, have sold most of them. I do find his style doesn't vary much from deck to deck, and they are on the cool side -- don't generate any emotion from me.


History, Symbolism and Divination is my favorite Tarot book.

[katrinka]

I bought his companion book to the Buddha Tarot.
It struck me as being a lot more focused on RWS-style Tarot reading than Buddhism. (I'm not a religious person, but good Buddhist writing really does give me a kind of roadmap for this crazy existence. Case in point, this simple but utterly mind blowing little book:
Tara The Feminine Divine


I would have liked to see more of an equal balance. I was expecting too much, I thought it would be a brilliant Joseph Campbell style tome on how East and West have the same underlying thread of truth. Tarot + Buddhism is such a potentially fascinating, powerful, and yes, enlightening subject. Yet the whole book was kind of meh.

It's still a great subject. And I hope someone writes the book I was hoping for.