The Artistry of Tarot
Key takeaways
- Sign up to receive it in your inbox.The first tarot cards, from fifteenth-century Italy, were, essentially, playing cards.
- (Left to right) Queen of Swords, Death, and Time from the Visconti-Sforza tarot cards by Bonifacio Bembo.
- About TownOff BroadwayIn Victoria Lynne Barclay’s startlingly intimate play “Camping,” two trailer-park girls share a beat-up tent, every few years, over three decades, as their paths fork along class lines.
Sign up to receive it in your inbox.The first tarot cards, from fifteenth-century Italy, were, essentially, playing cards. Known as carte de trionfi, the cards formed the basis of a popular game played in Milanese courts: in addition to the fifty-two pip cards one might find in a standard set of playing cards, the tarot deck added twenty-one cards to the mix, the trionfi, or “triumphs,” which featured mystical imagery combined with scenes of daily Renaissance life. Few of these original tarot cards remain—the scant number that are left are part of what are known as the Visconti-Sforza decks, none of which are complete—and they had more to do with passing the time than telling one’s fortune. It was not until the eighteenth century that people began to use the cards for occult readings.
(Left to right) Queen of Swords, Death, and Time from the Visconti-Sforza tarot cards by Bonifacio Bembo. Milan or Cremona, Italy, ca. 1456-58.Art works by Bonifacio Bembo / Courtesy Morgan Library & MuseumIn the years since, tarot has evolved into not only a New Age trend but a bustling form of artistic expression; beyond the classic Rider-Waite-Smith deck of 1909, you can now find a tarot deck customized for nearly every interest—there’s cat tarot, “Peanuts” tarot, pasta tarot, and even “Tarot del Toro,” inspired by Guillermo del Toro films. The evolution of the cards over generations forms the basis of “Tarot! Renaissance Symbols, Modern Visions,” a new, two-part exhibition running at the Morgan Library & Museum, through Oct. 4. The first section of the show displays rare early tarot decks, while the second highlights artists, such as the Surrealists Leonora Carrington and Niki de Saint Phalle, who have reinterpreted the Major Arcana—twenty-two cards representing significant aspects of life—in wild and wacky ways.—Rachel Syme
About TownOff BroadwayIn Victoria Lynne Barclay’s startlingly intimate play “Camping,” two trailer-park girls share a beat-up tent, every few years, over three decades, as their paths fork along class lines. They are best friends, secret-sharers; their battles feel brutal, world-shattering. “Camping” is part of a modern wave of smart art about the humiliations and passions of girlhood, from “John Proctor Is the Villain” to the TV series “PEN15”; it shares some DNA with “Heated Rivalry,” as well, in its exploration of buried desire. But the defiant two-hander, directed by Adrienne Campbell-Holt for Colt Coeur, has a distinctive, gritty force all its own, deepened by the committed performances of Alice Kremelberg and Colby Minifie, whose chemistry builds toward an inferno.—Emily Nussbaum (HERE; through July 11.)