Mystical, enigmatic and potent, the power of tarot cards comes from their curious imagery. Today best known for divination and fortune-telling, it was originally a card game played for fun. Tarot’s symbolism and origins are mysterious, but the many packs held in the V&A’s collection can help us understand these fascinating cards.
What is tarot?
The tarot consists of 78 cards, 22 triumph or 'Major Arcana' cards and 56 pip or 'Minor Arcana' cards. The Major Arcana includes: archetypal figures – the Emperor, the Devil and the Fool; astrological elements – the Sun, Moon, and Star; and other eclectic symbols such as Strength, the Tower and Death.
Rather than using the French suits of spades, clubs, hearts and diamonds that are more commonly known in England, tarot cards use the Italian suits of swords, cups, coins, and batons or wands. In tarot today, the suits are understood to represent aspects of life or the four elements – swords (thoughts or air), cups (emotions or water), coins/pentacles (material aspects or earth), and batons/wands (actions or fire). It is possible that they once represented classes of society – aristocracy, clergy, merchants and peasants respectively.
The elusive origin of tarot has been variously traced back to India, Egypt, and to the invention of papermaking and playing cards in China and Korea in the early 12th century. It was not until the 15th century that tarot entered Europe, most likely through the ports of Venice at the height of maritime trade. Tarot, like other card games, was a product of cross-cultural exchange as they were used by merchants, traders, and seafarers seeking a form of entertainment on their long voyages.
Amongst the oldest surviving tarot cards are four rare 15th century hand-painted and gilded Italian tarot cards from the V&A’s collection.
The beauty and symbolism of these cards would delight and entertain the card-playing nobles of the Italian Renaissance courts. Tarot was a trick or trump game in which higher cards beat lower cards. The imagery of these cards would have been recognisable to the players, including allusions to classical mythology and even aristocratic family insignia, for example, the Knave of Coins displays the Visconti heraldic emblem of the burning suns.
The specific order of the Major Arcana may have been based on Renaissance carnival processions – dramatic parades featuring costumed performers acting out stories from folklore and religion. These symbolic pageants would include figures like those seen on the tarot cards, such as the Devil and themes such as Justice. These spectacles would have provided entertainment for the mainly illiterate population, but also a moral lesson. This resonates with the later interpretation of the tarot sequence as a journey from foolishness to wisdom.
In the late 18th century, tarot cards began to be used for fortune-telling. In the 1770s, self-proclaimed master of cartomancy (fortune-telling using a standard 52-card deck) Etteilla (born Jean-Baptiste Alliette) created the first deck of cards to be used specifically for divination. He used his French suited deck to teach the art of reading cards. By the 1780s several writers introduced mysticism to the cards for the first time by declaring tarot’s Egyptian origins, which remain unproven. When Etteilla read these revelations, he began to include tarot as part of his cartomancy work.
Interest in the occult bloomed in the 19th century, and the use of tarot as a divination tool gained in popularity. In 1861, French occultist Eliphas Levi (born Alphonse Louis Constant) published his book Dogma et Rituel de la haute magie, turning tarot from a fun fortune-telling parlour game to an esoteric tool for serious occultists. Around this time several elements of the tarot were changed to fit with a combination of beliefs from different religions and mythologies, such as numerology and Kabbalah. Levi also introduced the terms 'Major' and 'Minor Arcana' to refer to the trump cards and the pip cards respectively.
Tarot was introduced to Britain in 1886, with Arthur Edward Waite’s English translation of Levi’s book. Two years later, the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn was formed, a society which studied the occult and practised ceremonial magic. It was as members of the Golden Dawn that Arthur Edward Waite and Pamela Colman Smith crossed paths, a meeting that would lead to the creation of one of the most recognisable tarot decks still in print today. The Rider Waite Smith tarot deck, featuring iconic artwork by Colman Smith, was first published in 1909. It was the first deck to have fully illustrated pip cards which could be read intuitively. Though Waite gave precise instructions for the design of the Major Arcana cards, Colman Smith was given a blank slate to create the Minor Arcana. This had a lasting impact on the design of tarot cards, many of which still use the symbology created by Colman Smith to this day.
In recent years there has been a resurgence of interest in tarot, including new online communities. Although the traditional symbology remains, artists and designers have reimagined and reinterpreted the visual language of tarot.
Tarot in the V&A
The V&A holds many tarot decks from the 15th century to today. These not only show the evolution of the design of the cards, but also the variety of imagery used.
Minchiate was a game which was invented in Florence in the 1540s, and evolved alongside tarot. The 97-card Minchiate deck differs from the standard tarot as alongside the core triumph cards are four virtues: Hope, Faith, Charity, and Prudence; the four elements; and the twelve astrological signs.
Examples of woodcut tarot cards from the mid-18th century still survive. Towards the end of the century, tarot cards could be mass produced using new printmaking techniques such as lithography. Many publishers and designers often emulated woodcut and engraving, harking back to a romanticised folk use of tarot cards.
Tarot decks were also produced with different pictorial themes including animals, prominent historical figures, or even noted buildings. Some of these, such as the rural scenes depicted on cards from the 19th century game ‘Industrie und Gluck’ (which means Diligence and Fortune), were later reinterpreted for fortune-telling. It is intriguing to think that some of the varied designs could also have been used creatively for divination or cartomancy.
Animal tarot was popular in the 18th century. Dogs featured heavily but alongside them are less common animals such as elephants, and even unicorns. Perhaps the characteristics of animals could have been used for fortune or character readings, for example, pride for a peacock or loyalty for a dog.
A 19th-century set of cards featuring military subjects and portraits may have been used by soldiers to pass the time between duties, but could they also have been used to predict the outcome of battles?
Perhaps the most mundane deck is the one featuring Danish buildings, which was probably a souvenir or collectable. These cards have a certain charm in being so far removed from the more mystical tarot.
Emerging from an exhibition at the Focal Point Gallery in 2011, the Outrageous Fortune tarot deck features 78 cards each designed by individual artists in response to the visual imagery and symbolism of the traditional tarot. The artists’ representations vary in media but focus on our human desire to predict the future and find comfort in uncertainty.
With millions of tarot decks in circulation today, the cards continue to fascinate and inspire, both for their imaginative design and as a tool for prophecy and self-exploration.
Rider-Waite-Smith tarot deck, lithographs designed by Pamela Colman Smith, published by Arthur Edward Waite, printed by Rider and Company, London, first printed, 1910, reprinted 1916. Museum no. E.423 to 500-1934
