The Magical History of Tarot Cards
Originally published in December 1909, the Rider-Waite deck, as it is now known, became the most popular Tarot deck in the world. In the 20th century, occultist Arthur Edward Waite commissioned artist Pamela Colman Smith to design the Tarot deck. She was, as he wrote, "a most imaginative and abnormally psychic artist." Tarot cards are a way for an individual to explore a question about themselves that they may have. As you pick cards, you can reflect on possible answers to your questions and interpret each card's meaning as it pertains to what you asked. Keeping in mind that Tarot cards are tools for introspection, it is best to keep the questions open-ended to make them an effective tool for introspection. The Rider deck changed the way Tarot cards were received by their imagery and symbols; it was one of the first decks to use situational images on all the cards that people can relate to," Tarot cards experts say. "The images can spark one's intuition and evoke an emotional response from the client that connects to their question."
I love Tarot cards; my grandfather gave my mom a deck when I was growing up, and she has used them for as early as I can remember. They were always helpful for looking to the future and thinking about the question or predicament. Currently, I am teaching myself how to give readings and understand the cards. I went to The Whitney in October to see one of the original decks. It was extraordinary.
Rider-Waite-Smith Tarot Deck, 1909 (printed c. 1920–30) at Whitney Museum of American Art
EARLY HISTORY
The earliest mentions of tarot date between the 1440s and 1450s. The symbolism of cups, swords, batons, and coins remains today. Tarot was initially popularized in Italian cities such as Venice and Milan. It was a game, and the present-day association of tarot with fortune-telling and the occult gained its meaning only in the 19th century and has nothing to do with medieval tarot cards. The word "tarot" derives from tarocchi, an Italian word that means root—taroch—which translates to "foolishness." Tarot was a 70-card game heavily inspired by the theatrical festivals that would happen during the Italian Renaissance. At this time, only three decks survived. One of the decks was made for Filippo Maria Visconti, the last duke of Milan, before his death in 1447. The other deck was likely made for Francesco Sforza, a mercenary commander who served in Milan and Venice and married the only child of Filippo Maria Visconti. The last deck, The Brambilla Deck, was painted for Visconti before his death in 1447. According to a manuscript, source unknown, in 1750, the 62-card Tarocco Bolognese Deck from the 15th century was the first deck to be used for fortune-telling.
By the 1780s, many people in France were assigning divine meanings to their decks, more specifically, the deck of the Tarot of Marseilles. In a series of French volumes called "The Primeval World, Analyzed and Compared to the Modern World," published in 1773. After that was published, Antoine Court de Gébelin proposed a theory that tarot cards came from Egypt and contained the secret wisdom of Thoth, "the god of writing, magic, wisdom, and the moon." This shift was led by Jean-Baptiste Alliette, or Etteilla, whose book Etteilla, ou manière de se récréer avec un jeu de cartes (“Etteilla, or a Way to Entertain Yourself With a Deck of Cards”) unreliably linked the tarot to ancient Egyptian texts.
In 1789, a new deck of tarot cards was intended solely for supernatural use. This deck comprises 78 cards organized into two categories: the Major Arcana and the Minor Arcana. Meanwhile, Eliphas Lévi, author and former Catholic priest, popularized the notion that tarot symbols were somehow connected with the Hebrew alphabet and thus to the Jewish mystical tradition of Kabbalah. Many of the tarot imageries we see today come from the French occultists linking Egypt and the Hebrew language to spiritualism. By the turn of the 20th century, tarot cards—particularly the Tarot of Marseilles—were so closely related to the occult that the Tarot Nouveau, a deck used solely for playing rather than predicting.
In 1909, Arthur Edward Waite, British poet, and writer of occult and esoteric matters, hired Pamela Colman Smith to illustrate the widely popular Waite-Smith deck. Still the most popular deck in the world to this day. The deck is famously known as the Rider-Waite deck because the Rider Company published it. The Rider-Waite deck had catered to a modern taste and gave importance to esoteric practices; the Christian imagery of previous decks was toned down. For instance, the Pope became the Hierophant, and the Papess became the High Priestess. The Minor Arcana was illustrated with allegorical scenes, whereas earlier decks only had simple designs.
The Sun Card: An infant rides a white horse under the anthropomorphized sun, with sunflowers in the background.
The card portends good fortune, happiness, joy, and harmony. It represents the universe coming together, agreeing with your path, and aiding forward movement into something more significant.
PAMELA COLMAN SMITH, THE LEGENDARY ARTIST BEHIND THEM
The artist that created these cards was Pamela Colman Smith. She was biracial and maintained romantic relationships with other women ( an ICON). For over a century, Smith went uncredited for her contribution to the deck. Her iconic signature was her only found ownership of the deck: a monogram she created while studying Japanese design, which she embedded into the decoration for every Tarot card. From early in her life, Smith's spiritual beliefs were oriented toward the esoteric and arcane. Then in 1901, she began to engage with paranormal and supernatural beliefs, which influenced her artistic output. Following the founding of Pratt Institute in 1893, Smith moved to New York and Jamaica for a few months. She then returned to America in 1894 to enroll at Pratt Institute. She studied under Arthur Wesley Dow at the institute. A painter, printmaker, photographer, and influential arts educator, Dow introduced Smith to Art Nouveau and Symbolism. In her mature work, she demonstrated sparkling originality. Smith left Pratt in 1897 without a degree. She moved back to London to live with her father after her mother died that year. She continued work as an illustrator. Smith found early success and a healthy dose of notoriety in England. In 1901, she established a studio in London. Pamela Colman Smith had synesthesia, which caused her to have an automatic visual experience, in this instance, activated by sound.
SMITH’S WORK ON THE DECK
When she started the Rirder-Waite-Smith Deck, her illustrations underscored the critical elements of her signature iconography. Smith gathered imagery from many forms of Christian mysticism, Jewish esotericism, and Western occultism. Her work sought to produce a universal set of symbols that could speak to every matter in human life. Smith was a mystic who was part of the secret occultist society, the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, which borrowed ideas from Kabbalah and freemasonry for its spiritual belief system centered on magic and metaphysics. Smith's influences for the imagery included the indulgent ink illustrations by English artist Aubrey Beardsley and the luminous paintings of the Pre-Raphaelites. The Rider-Waite-tarot deck was the first to feature fully illustrated, symbolic images on each card and integrated Judeo-Christian ideas and faith into a visual vocabulary. In addition, the deck often drew inspiration heavily from occult magic. Stylistically, the designs in the deck reflect the era's widespread embrace of the sinuous, curved, organic lines of Art Nouveau and the patterned, flowing patterns of Japanese prints. Smith used the style in her tarot cards and in watercolors to suggest the existence of a mystical occult beyond the visible one. In an interview, Barbara Haskell, curator of the Whitney exhibition, says that "Smith's Art, more than words, presents the mood of the time, and Pamela Colman Smith's work does get to the essence of a feeling of that era," she said. "On one hand, people were excited about industrialization, which was the dominant mode, but there were also those who were very concerned that it was stripping individuals of a sense of spirituality and connection to their inner core. That certainly has not gone away, and we have come fully back into such a moment."
"Smith's works feel even more resonant," Haskell added, "showing art as a way to find a personalized, spiritual connection to divinity in isolating times."
The Rider-Waite Tarot deck by Pamela Colman Smith was a unique and esquire piece of art surrounded by mysticism and great beauty. It brings joy to everyone, from the spiritually inclined to the art lover. The deck has a purpose to many. The blend of cultures, artistic styles, and religious symbolism was indeed the first of its kind, especially during the 1900s, by women as unique as Smith. A beautiful enigma, if you will.
Resources
David, L. (2022, April 19). The 5 best tarot card decks, according to professional tarot readers. Insider. Retrieved November 19, 2022, from https://www.insider.com/guides/hobbies-crafts/best-tarot-cards#the-rider-waite-smith-tarot-deck-1
Palumbo, J. (2022, May 12). The woman behind the world's most famous tarot deck was nearly lost in history. CNN. Retrieved from https://www.cnn.com/style/article/pamela-colman-smith-tarot-art-whitney/index.html
Shondaland. (2021, November 2). Demystifying Pamela Colman Smith. Shondaland. Retrieved November 19, 2022, from https://www.shondaland.com/inspire/books/a21940524/demystifying-pamela-colman-smith/
Topolsky, L. J. (2015, July 10). If you can picture a tarot card, it's because of these 3 people. Atlas Obscura. Retrieved November 19, 2022, from https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/the-deck-of-cards-that-made-tarot-a-global-phenomenon
Richman-Abdou, K. (2020, April 20). The spellbinding history of Tarot Cards, from a mainstream card game to a magical ritual. My Modern Met. Retrieved November 29, 2022, from https://mymodernmet.com/history-of-tarot-cards/
