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So she understood how to convey them in a way that felt very inclusive, and allowed other people to understand them in a way I think they maybe didn't before.

'She went to the Pratt Institute, and was really well versed in commercial art and posters.

'I think there's something about her intuitive understanding of these archetypes and her skill as an amazing graphic artist,' says Hundley. Pamela Colman Smith wrote in a letter that it was 'a big job for very little cash' – but her vibrant illustrations were key in widening the appeal of tarot. 'The pictures are like doors which open unexpected chambers, or like a turn in the road with a wide prospect beyond,' wrote Waite in the accompanying book, The Pictorial Key to Tarot. Their deck reimagined and modernised tarot, reinterpreting the imagery to create a deck intended to reflect the reader using it. Both Colman and Waite were members of the secret society the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, devoted to the study of the occult (other members included Bram Stoker and WB Yeats). If you've only seen one tarot deck, it's likely to be this, the Rider-Waite-Smith (often referred to as just the Rider-Waite) – still the most widely used in the world today. The most famous – and influential – tarot was created in 1909 when occultist Arthur Edward Waite commissioned artist Pamela Colman Smith to design a deck. Tarot originated as a parlour game, and it wasn't until the 18th Century that the cards became a tool for divination. Created for aristocrats, the cards are hand-painted, intricate pieces of art, featuring figures that would go on to become key tarot archetypes. The oldest known existing tarot cards, the Visconti-Sforza deck, date back to 15th-Century Italy. 'It's really thrilling to see how people have interpreted and then completely changed it, but there's still that unifying archetype,' says Hundley. Yet all will convey a sense of inner strength overcoming obstacles. It might not be a lion at all, but a grizzly bear, or an alligator. She might be stroking the lion, riding on its back or holding its jaw open. The Strength card, symbolising bravery in adversity, may typically feature a woman with a lion, but depending on the artist, that woman might be an Aztec warrior, Egyptian Queen or – in the 2015 Black Power Tarot – Tina Turner. The book Tarot features more than 500 decks, spanning six centuries – and shows how different artists have put their own unique stamp on tarot. 'It's very much about our intuitive reaction to these archetypes.' 'Tarot felt like the right place to start because it is a totally visual, archetypal language,' she says. The weighty titles have focused on Astrology and, in the most recently published edition, Witchcraft – but Hundley says tarot was a natural beginning for the series.

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Hundley is the editor of a series of books from Taschen, entitled The Library of Esoterica, that explore the visual history of the arcane. 'It's a blank canvas with some parameters, in that these images that you're creating need to have some corresponding meaning.' 'Tarot is really what you make of it, and that's why it's such an amazing medium for artists,' author and editor Jessica Hundley tells BBC Culture. The symbols of tarot have been adapted and transformed hundreds of times over to reflect the time and culture in which they are created. Look at tarot decks across the last 600 years and you'll get a crash course in art history, from Renaissance Italy through to Art Nouveau and Art Deco, to Pop Art and digital collage. She references the practice in her poem Daddy ('With my gypsy ancestress and my weird luck/ And my Taroc pack and my Taroc pack'), while The Hanging Man takes its name from a tarot card.īut tarot does not only inspire artists and designers – it's a powerful art form in its own right. Plath wrote in her journals of her wish to get better at reading tarot – but it played an important part in her art, too. The Tarot de Marseille deck was a 24th birthday gift from Hughes. The symbol that spread around the world The rings sold for a respectable $38,000 (£28,000) – but this was mere pocket change compared to the most sought after item in the lot: Plath's personal tarot deck. It included intimate love letters, recipe cards, a rolling pin, family photo albums and her and Ted Hughes's gold wedding bands. Earlier this summer, a collection of Sylvia Plath's personal items went up for sale at Sotheby's.

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