Tarot – Page 15 – { feuilleton }

Valenti Angelo’s Salomé

And still they come… Valenti Angelo (1897–1982) was an American printmaker, author of several books for children and the illustrator of an estimated 250 classic works of fiction including this 1945 edition of Wilde’s Salomé for Heritage Press. Angelo has an engagingly simple style in this and other works, reminding me of David Sheridan’s Tarot designs. The Internet Archive has a copy of his illustrated The Imitation of Christ with drawings reminscent of Eric Gill’s woodcuts.

Elsewhere on { feuilleton }
• The illustrators archive
• The Oscar Wilde archive
• The Salomé archive

Dalí and the City

left: Lady Godiva with Butterflies; right: Alice in Wonderland.

London already has a number of Salvador Dalí works on display but there’s even more to see this month with an exhibition at Moor House, London Wall, where a handful of minor pieces are on show until 30th June, 2011. Dalí and the City features the artist’s Alice in Wonderland sculpture as well as the print shown here, and also some Tarot card designs. The masculine form of Lady Godiva above can be taken as further confirmation of Dalí’s recurrent interest in gender confusion. The Independent has more examples from the show while this page has details of opening times.

Previously on { feuilleton }
• Dalí’s Elephant
• Dalí in Wonderland
• Dirty Dalí
• Impressions de la Haute Mongolie revisited
• Dalí and Film
• Salvador Dalí’s apocalyptic happening
• Dalí Atomicus
• Impressions de la Haute Mongolie

Splendor Solis

Venus: The Peacock’s Tail.

The Tarot-like illustrations to the Splendor Solis, a 16th-century alchemical manuscript, have fascinated me for years, ever since I saw them reproduced in the pages of Man, Myth & Magic. Despite their familiarity, the copies online are less than satisfactory, mostly poor scans from books with inconsistent colours. Given the amount of original alchemical documents being made available by the world’s libraries it’s only a matter of time until a decent set of reproductions turn up. Until then there’s a complete set of the plates here with details about the book and links to further information. As usual, if anyone finds better copies—preferably from a copy of the original text—please leave a comment.

The Black Sun.

Hermaphrodite with Egg.

Previously on { feuilleton }
• Amphitheatrum Sapientiae Aeternae
• Cabala, Speculum Artis Et Naturae In Alchymia
• Digital alchemy

Scenes from a carriage

One of John Tenniel’s illustrations for Through the Looking-Glass (1871).

The collaboration with Carroll, and the production of this clairvoyant illustration gave Tenniel the chance to accuse the killer, whose identity he knew – because he had, at some level, shared in the crime. His capped (or crowned) Guard wears the Diamond and stares, eyeless, at the girl: because he is, or stands for, the Red King. He is checkmated. The Goat accuses him, a Tarot Devil, representing ‘ravishment, force, fatality’. So Tenniel is able to put into his depiction of Alice the details of the murders that the police have never made public. The hands of the victims were always tied in front of them – as Alice’s are, within her muff. They were all strangled with a knotted scarf, such as the one that Alice wears. And a single feather was knotted into their hair. I rest my case.

There’s further divination by Iain Sinclair of Tenniel’s carriage scene in his 1991 novel Downriver but you’ll have to search out the book if you want the rest. The picture above is scanned from my 1908 edition of the two Alice novels which has the sharpest reproductions of Tenniel’s illustrations I’ve seen, not least because they’re printed on quality paper. Later editions often print second- or third-generation copies with the cross-hatched areas reduced to black smudges.

Oedipus by Max Ernst from Une semaine de bonté (1934).

Tenniel’s carriage scene has always been linked for me with this collage by Max Ernst from his Surrealist masterwork, Une semaine de bonté. Sinclair’s proposed murder scenario gives the two pictures an additional resonance when you notice the body on the floor of Ernst’s carriage. Is this Oedipus’s father, recently slain by his son, or some other victim?

Lithograph by Max Ernst from Lewis Carroll’s Wunderhorn (1970).

Salvador Dalí illustrated Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland in 1969 which perhaps prompted Ernst’s own set of mysterious Alice-inspired lithographs a year later. I’ve yet to see a complete set of the Ernst prints, if anyone has a link then please leave a comment. The artist’s collage novel is a lot easier to find since it’s one of the many great books that Dover Publications keep in print.

Previously on { feuilleton }
• Through the Psychedelic Looking-Glass: the 2011 calendar
• Jabberwocky
• Alice in Acidland
• Return to Wonderland
• Dalí in Wonderland
• Virtual Alice
• Psychedelic Wonderland: the 2010 calendar
• Charles Robinson’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland
• Humpty Dumpty variations
• Alice in Wonderland by Jonathan Miller
• The Illustrators of Alice

The art of Hector de Gregorio

left: Magus/Lee Adams (or Magician in the Tarot) (2009); right: I Expel All Evil (2010).

Tarot imagery—or work inspired by it—continues to infiltrate the contemporary art world. The gallery sites featuring Hector de Gregorio’s pictures have a couple of other portraits based on the Major Arcana but there’s no clue as to whether he’s depicted the full series. Given the quality of these creations I think he ought to give it a go. Via Bajo el Signo de Libra.

Previously on { feuilleton }
• The Major Arcana by Jak Flash
• The Sapphire Museum of Magic and Occultism
• Strange Attractor Salon
• The art of Pamela Colman Smith, 1878–1951
• Layered Orders: Crowley’s Thoth Deck and the Tarot
• In the Shadow of the Sun by Derek Jarman
• The Major Arcana