A new exhibition shows how, over the centuries, the cards went from courtly novelty to occultish tool of divination β and the way in which the art form is still evolving. T here are few more appropriate venues in which to stage an exhibition about tarot than the newly refurbished galleries of the Warburg Institute.
Based in Bloomsbury, London, since but founded in Hamburg at the turn of the 20th century by historian Aby Warburg β himself a pioneering modern scholar of tarot cards β its aim was the study of global cultural history and the role played by images, with particular emphasis on the relationship between the Renaissance and ancient civilisations.
His deck, largely used by secret aristocratic magical societies, set the visual and spiritual tone in thinking and practice for the next few centuries until the early 20th century and the British occult revival. It was the various expulsions and fragmentations of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn β a secret society exploring magic and occult mysticism which included WB Yeats and Aleister Crowley as members β that then created the dominant decks of the 20th and 21st centuries.
Her adoption of modernist artistic innovations places her work closer to the contemporary artists of the time as opposed to the neo-medieval romantic tarot iconography of tradition. The tradition of female artists shaping the visual grammar of tarot continues to this day.
At a time when you can buy Dune and Hunger Games decks and get a reading in Selfridges, it is clear that tarot is alive and well. We know this tableau contains his cards from the first deck explicitly used for fortune telling, but it does retain some mystery as it remains unclear why the images are cut to accommodate what appears to be folds.
