Customer Reviews

The Encyclopedia of Tarot, Vol. 4

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

"Tarotists are as diverse in style, personality, background, and appearance as the characters on the cards themselves. At the same time, we are drawn together by a common interest. We gravitate to each other, in person and on-line: collectors, scholars, art historians, occultists, business people, artists and fortunetellers who read the cards. The pages of the Encyclopedia are a gallery of the people of tarot, living and long-dead, as much as they are a gallery of tarot cards." - From the book

Featuring artwork from 850 tarot decks and reproductions of more than 11,000 different tarot cards from the 20th century, Volume IV is the largest installment of the Encyclopedia of Tarot. From Celtic Revival to Japanese manga, Native American lore to teddy bears, Volume IV explores these themes and much more. In addition, this volume further investigates the Western esoteric tradition of tarot, including Egyptian, Masonic, Kabbalistic, and Christian symbolism, as well as New Age values.

Volume IV incorporates both unpublished and published tarot decks from a vast array of media such as computer graphics, watercolors, engravings, wood, textiles, oil paints and more. Unfortunately, the full-color, glossy pictures of this volume span only eight pages with the rest of the card images depicted in black and white. The artists' personal commentary on the decks is often provided, helping to illuminate interpretation and philosophy of their work.

Some of the fascinating tarot decks displayed in Volume IV include:

* Tarocchi di Robot (Tarot of the Robot) by Massimo Borreli (1987)
* Roots of Asia by Amnart Klanpracher (2001)
* Vertigo Tarot by Dave McKean based on the DC Comics series (1995 and 2001)
* Magic Story of Misa Tarot by Misa no Mahou Monogatari (1998)
* Ramses: Tarot of Eternity by Giordano Berti and Severino Baldi (2003)
* Full Moon Dreams by Lunaea Weatherstone (1998)
* Gaian Tarot by Joanna Powell Colbert (2002)
* Hanslian Tarot by Alois Hanslian (1998)
* Cosmic Tribe Tarot by Stevee Postman (1998)
* Stained Glass Tarot by Laurie Amato (1999)
* PoMo Tarot by Brian Williams (1994)
* Hudes Tarot by Susan Hudes (1995)
* Animal-Wise Tarot by Ted Andrews (1999)
* Maat Tarot by Julia Cuccia-Watts (2002)

Several decks listed under "Unpublished" are now published. For example, Zach Wong's Adflatus deck (2000)-published as Revelations Tarot-is featured in Volume IV as is Amy Erickson's New Millennium Tarot (1999) which is now known as Tarot of the Four Elements (text by Isha Lerner).

Special features in Volume IV of the Encyclopedia of Tarot include:

* Tarock packs (Tarot decks used only for gaming)
* Annotated bibliography of more than 1,500 books and articles dating from the 18th century to present
* The "Ancient Egyptian Temple", a pictorial history of decks based on ancient Egyptian symbolism
* 100 Japanese decks with many based on popular manga and anime characters
* Cataloguing of decks by themes (e.g. animals, Celtic, Goth) as well as illustrative technique (e.g. photography, collage, computer graphics)
* The essay "Does Tarot Work?" by Allen Stairs

At 802 pages, Volume IV of the Encyclopedia of Tarot is a visual feast for Tarot enthusiasts. I found a few typos so far, but these errors don't eclipse the main reason I bought this book: to see Tarot images from hundreds of decks for comparison and pure aesthetic enjoyment. If you're the type of person that loves viewing Tarot cards online, often drooling at what you see, you'll be thrilled at having thousands of images at your fingertips.

Janet Boyer, author of The Back in Time Tarot Book: Picture the Past, Experience the Cards, Understand the Present (coming Fall 2008 from Hampton Roads Publishing)

This is the fourth in a series of books that Stuart Kaplan has put out on the Tarot. Unlike his previous volumes that had some historical data, this volume focuses on the published, rare, and unpublished decks that are not in volumes one through three (although there is some overlap in images-especially the Rider Waite decks- from the other volumes).

It is worth the price for the images alone but if you are looking to add to your Tarot knowledge then there are other books, at a cheaper price,that you should look for.

The Encyclopedia Of Tarot, Volume IV is an extensive visual and descriptive tour of over 800 mass-market tarot decks, limited editions, antique decks, previously unpublished tarot artwork, and 100 published Japanese tarot decks including some based on anime and manga. Black-and-white photographs of deck cards and extensive detailed history and discussion of the artists, themes, and esoteric traditions of tarot. Volume IV is complete within and of itself, and does not hold any duplicated material with Volumes I, II, and III. An excellent reference for anyone interested in learning more about all aspects of tarot, or searching for images of the ideal tarot deck for one's tastes.

I seem to recall seeing somewhere that this (the fourth volume in the series) was originally intended as two volumes; at just over 800 pages, its nearly twice the size of the early volumes. and if you were happy with those, chances are you will be pleased with this latest addition, as they are much of a kind. In works of this sort, if the size is to be manageable at all, the authors have to decide whether to go with breadth of coverage or with depth. Kaplan and company have chosen to go with breadth, and attempt to cover a whopping 800 decks, mostly pictorially. They try to counter the unavoidable superficiality of most of this coverage by doing selected depth coverage of topics such as the Tarot of Marseilles and decks with Egyptian motifs, not to mention an extraordinary 1 page article entitled "Does the Tarot Work?" Although I find myself often wishing there were more detail, (or more color photography), in the last analysis, I think they made the right choice: I wouldn't sacrifice any of the decks covered for additional detail. Hopefully the reception this volume receives will support a Volume 5 without the ten year wait that preceeded this one.

The fourth volume in the Encyclopedia of Tarot series is mainly a compendium of every tarot deck that was published, revised, or conceived since volume III came out in 1990. It lists published and unpublished decks, Rider-Waite and Tarot de Marseilles-influenced decks, Japanese and tarocchi decks. As an example of research, it is overwhelmingly broad, yet disappointingly superficial. Missing are the supplementary articles that made previous volumes so useful: the origin of the deck, the current locations of all extant Visconti-Sforza cards, information on tax stamps (to aid in identifying older decks), a biography of Pamela Colman-Smith, a list of all known early references to Tarot, and many more than can be listed here. While volumes I through III certainly contained an overwhelming number of decks themselves, the extra material placed the Tarot in a historical and scholarly context. Especially interesting was the article in volume I listing notable omissions in ancient lists of games, gambling, and fortune-telling where the Tarot should have been mentioned had it been in existence at that time.

In place of this fascinating and useful information, the sole supplement in volume IV is a one-page essay "Does the Tarot Work?" That's it. Hasn't any new historical data become available in the past decade and a half? What about a survey of the uses of the Tarot in modern society? Has there been any psychological research into the effect of archetypal images on the human consciousness? One is left with the conclusion that nothing new has come to light, that all the available information has already appeared in the first three volumes; that the only progress in Tarot has been the production of a staggering number of new decks, possibly more than the potential number of buyers.

Of course, this isn't true - there have been an enormous number of books on the Tarot published in the past 15 years. In fact, a trend has emerged where new decks more frequently come with their own detailed softcover book in place of the traditional "little white book." It wouldn't have taken much to at least comment on this.

I can recommend volume IV only to those who require the largest possible catalog of decks. The exhaustiveness of the list can be educational: for example, I had long been puzzled by the imagery on Giorgio Trevisan's "Renaissance" Tarot; volume IV informs me that it was based on the Landsknechts, the 16th century mercenaries. Enlightening if not exactly helpful information.