12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Based on classics, yet original on its own, May 7, 2009
This review is from: Dame Fortune's Wheel Tarot (English and Spanish Edition) (Cards)
Designed by Paul Huson, the Dame Fortune's Wheel Tarot takes inspiration from classic tarot decks, but includes a fully illustrated set of Minor Arcanas. Huson's artwork is reminiscent of the Tarot of Marseilles, although he uses softer lines than the classic woodcut look. He also employs colors in a striking way, which at a glance, may be a turn off for some collectors.
On the making of the Major Arcana, Huson drew inspiration from the Marseilles, and Estense deck. Unfortunately, I'm unfamiliar with the later deck. I do recognize a Visconti-Sforza influence on The Wheel of Fortune that shows a wheel surrounded by people on top, bottom and sides and a blindfolded women within its center. Also, the Cary-Yale Visconti gets a nod on Death that shows a skeleton with a scythe at hand on a horse, and The World that shows a woman on top of the sky of a kingdom. However, there is a card that I cannot attribute to either Marseilles or Visconti traditions; Strength that shows a woman breaking a column.
Each Major Arcana is labeled in English at the bottom, and numbered with roman numerals within the imagery, generally towards the top of the card. The exceptions are The Fool, which is unnumbered, and Death, which is unlabeled. In addition, The Magician, The Hierophant, The High Priestess, and Strength have been renamed (restored?) to The Juggler, The Pope, The Female Pope, and Fortitude, respectively. A mixture of yellow and green is associated with these cards.
Huson used the interpretations of Etteilla to generate the imagery for the Minor Arcana, which remains consistent with the Major Arcana. Each card is labeled in English at the bottom. The Court Cards, with the exception of the Knights, are also labeled within the imagery. For example: The Kings of Coins, Cups, Batons and Swords are labeled Alexander, Charle Magne, Caesar, and King David, respectively. Also, green, indigo, blue and red are associated with the suits of Coins, Cups, Batons and Sword.
This deck includes an additional card, The Significator intended for Tarot readings. This cards resembles an unnumbered Major Arcana. According to Huson, The Significator was "adaptated from a 16th century manuscript illustrating the astrological rulership of the zodiacal signs over parts of the human body".
I recommend this deck for tarot collector who would like to own a fully illustrated Marseilles/Visconti-inspired deck. It comes in a fitting box and includes a Little White Book.
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14 of 16 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Review from AeclecticTarot.com, July 10, 2009
This review is from: Dame Fortune's Wheel Tarot (English and Spanish Edition) (Cards)
Review by Lillie © 2009 AeclecticTarot.com
Dame Fortune's Wheel, created by Paul Huson and published by Lo Scarabeo, is a tarot deck that blends ancient images with Etteilla's 18th century cartomantic tradition and creates a deck that is enthralling, readable and beautiful. Paul Huson, long known as a writer and scholar of esoteric subjects, has stepped back in time beyond the fin de siecle occultists of the Golden Dawn to explore and illustrate the oldest extant tarot traditions. In doing so he has produced a deck that is a practical example of tarot scholarship at its best. Huson has also produced an extended booklet to go with the deck, which goes into some detail about the images, symbols and iconography he chose to use and which can be downloaded free from his web site.
Essentially the deck is arranged in the familiar manner, it has 79 cards, which comprise the usual pack plus the addition of an optional significator card that can be used or ignored according to the readers taste and desire. The 78 cards of the standard deck are structured along traditional lines; Justice is VIII and Fortitude is XI; The Fool is unnumbered and Death unnamed. The trumps are easily distinguished from the suits, and the suits from each other, by a simple but effective system of colour coding where each is given a predominant colouration, particularly in the titles and the backgrounds. The backs are reversible, the minors fully illustrated and the court uses the traditional nomenclature and poses. Kings and Queens are enthroned, Knights on horseback and Knaves are standing; all hold the symbols of their suits. In addition, for all but the knights, the court cards are given names as well as titles. These names, drawn from history and legend, are historically associated with the corresponding figures on French playing cards packs.
The deck is illustrated throughout in a brightly coloured, quasi-medieval style that harks back to the historic inspiration for the cards and which is both enchanting and delightful. The faces of the people depicted portray a sensitivity and grace that is reminiscent of the faces in stained glass windows. The richly coloured clothes and lush surroundings are only enhanced by the deliberate naivety of the images; the disproportionate figures and peculiar perspectives add to the feeling of truth and authenticity that is so clearly a part of these cards.
The 22 trumps have a yellow green background and the images chosen for them conform to the traditional images found upon old and antique decks and medieval images. These range from hand painted cards and wood block prints of the 15th century up to the well-known 18th century Conver designs and include the figure of Dame Fortune herself on trump X, turning the wheel of fate upon which we all ride. In keeping with the origin of these images and the ancient inspiration for this deck there is no cabbalistic and few astrological associations on these cards. Instead Huson relates them to medieval mystery plays such as the Dance of Death and to historical and allegorical figures such as pope Joan and Judas Iscariot who would have been familiar to the people of that time. Huson also relates the images to the four cardinal virtues, three of which are clearly named and the fourth, Prudence, which has been variously identified by other tarot scholars, is here linked to trump XXI, The World where it is illustrated with an image based upon the 15th century Este design in which the figure of Prudence stands upon the material world holding her symbolic accoutrements of mirror and snake.
The virtues are also associated with the minors, one being given to each suit, as are the French playing card symbols of Clubs, Hearts, Spades and Diamonds. In his extended booklet Huson mentions the elemental associations of the suits and these appear to be acknowledged in the colour coding. Coins are a deep verdant green, Cups are a dark indigo, Swords are in fiery orange and Batons a pale sky blue. However, other than these thematic colours the elements seem to play little part in the design of the cards; instead the meaning and symbology is given over almost entirely to Etteilla's neglected and derided interpretations of the minors first published in the late 18th century. Huson has fully illustrated these minors and as with the majors the designs are taken from, or drawn to imitate, medieval illustrations and the suit symbols are clearly shown, generally above or below the illustrative picture.
Just as Pamela Colman Smith famously illustrated A E Waite's deck and gave the world of tarot the first truly pictorial minors, so has Huson done for Etteilla's meanings, giving form, substance and readability to these cards. It will not go unnoticed that a few of these designs bear distinct correspondences to the symbols in the RWS images. Most notable amongst these would be the tombs in the 4 of Swords and other examples would include the family with in the gates of their walled home in the 10 of Coins and the man, lost in ennui on the 4 of cups, unable to see the wonder before him. These similarities do not, however, illustrate Huson's reliance upon the Waite/Smith designs, instead they serve to draw attention to the fact that while Waite had nothing good to say about Etteilla and his works he never the less used his meanings as a basis for his own interpretation of the minors, as had Mathers before him. Because of this lineal descent the modern reader, familiar with the RWS will, in most instances, find it relatively easy to accommodate the images on Huson's cards within the range of meanings given by Waite, though not necessarily with Colman Smiths drawings.
The majority of these images on these cards bear no relationship to any other deck and appear to be entirely original portrayals of the ideas contained therein. To create them Huson has used an illustrative technique that not only used the scene portrayed to convey the meaning but which also incorporates symbolic allusions which would have been familiar to the medieval mind; symbols such as flowers, objects and allegorical figures that made up the lexicon of the common person in the days before reading and writing became wide spread. That there are more symbols, nuances and subtleties than are apparent at first glance or that are explained in the extended booklet seems to be a likely proposition and whether these are mentioned in Huson's recent book `Mystical Origins of the Tarot' or whether the reader must discover them for themselves, they make the deck more than worthy of further study and exploration.
Both the symbolism and the use of Etteilla's meanings may be thought to detract from the readability of these cards, as though they might only be used successfully by someone with a deep grounding in medieval iconography or a knowledge of Etteilla. This is not so, the pictures, the poses, the faces alone speak volumes and intuitive readers should find much in these cards to spark their imagination, while a reader who prefers to work from the interpretations given in books will soon find that the charming and attractive images serve as an aide memoire to the meanings.
It can be said that a review would not be a review if it did not attempt to give a balanced view of it's subject; it is therefore necessary to mention whatever flaws may be present in this deck. This is not an easy matter; Huson has created a deck where the majors perfectly capture the chosen iconography of the image, from the crude and clumsy Devil to the enigmatic androgen on the Star; where the courts are filled with people full of character and expression, from the serene confidence of the Queen of Coins to the saturnine Knight of Batons and where the minors are filled with perfect vignettes of life ranging from the doomed lovers in the 5 of Coins to the knight winning honour and acclaim in the 9 of cups. If a flaw can be found in this deck it is that the dark indigo used for the background of the suit of cups makes the names of the King, Queen and Knave difficult to read in certain lights. But it could also be said that the colour is beautiful enough to make it worth such a small inconvenience.
Produced to the high standard enjoyed by all LS Tarots, Dame Fortune's Wheel is a rare example of a deck that throws light upon a much ignored part of tarot history whilst being exquisitely attractive and easily readable. Indeed it could be said that this is a significantly important tarot deck, it is a bold illustration of serious tarot scholarship. One is given the impression while using it that this could have been the pattern for all modern tarot decks had the Golden Dawn and Waite never stepped forward to exercise their current strangle hold over the Anglo American tarot world. Every tarot reader, especially those who are exclusively familiar with the RWS, should at least look at these cards; both to see where tarot has come from and where it might have gone had things been different. In a sense it is an illustration of the fragility of that which we call tradition. The Etteilla minors, once the corner stone of tarot divination and still popular in Europe, have become almost forgotten in the English-speaking world. Huson and Lo Scarabeo are to be commended for bringing them back to current attention in such an accessible way.
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