BY Enrique Enriquez, New York City, USA

Illustrated by Paul B. Williams

The Tarot de Marseille (TdM) is as a poetic structure that speaks the language of direct revelations. I would like to suggest that the TdM’s language operates under a distinct and separate logic than the language of what I would define as “fantasy decks” (Tarots which are fantastical either because they depict fantasy worlds, or because they have been shaped by the fantasy of their individual authors).

This distinctive language has been mostly overlooked in the 20th Century. The most evident, and painful, evidence of this is the idea that the pips (Minors) need to be illustrated to be understandable.

It may seem paradoxical, but I will use here the word ‘optical’ to define this language in opposition to the ‘symbolic’ language assigned to the Tarot through its many incarnations in the 20th Century. The word ‘optical’ will be used here to denote a face value language which generates new, fresh, metaphors in us every time we look at the cards. (I would like to think that this is a logic that links the Tarot de Marseille with the elusive ‘Language of the Birds’; but this would be the subject of another essay. Please see Paul Williams’ “Language of the Birds” treatise on this website).

This happens because in the TdM’s optical language the image is first sign, and symbol second. XVII-L'Etoile would first be seen as a woman kneeling down and pouring water on a stream. Only after this image has been processed both by the conscious and the unconscious mind at face value, may it be seen as ‘hope’, ‘The anima’, ‘Christ as the morning star’, etc, although this is often unnecessary. This would be the opposite of a symbolical understanding of the Tarot, in which each image will always stand for something else than the image itself.

A sign is a direct invitation to act. L'Etoile signals the act of pouring water, just as a fork and a knife together signal the proximity of a restaurant. Will we take a detour to eat? Will we let go of that water? How many times have you seen L'Etoile, understanding immediately its message, without having to utter a single word? At that point, delving in the possible occult meanings of the black bird perched on a tree that’s far away and becomes pointless. There is no need for us to take a detour to explain that “Emperor Napoleon didn’t like his mistresses to wash their private parts before getting intimate and that is why the Star has a brownish navel.” You simply knew what you needed to know. Emphasizing this may seem silly, but it is very important if we want to understand the value of working with images of high iconic level when our aim is to experience the Tarot as a set of revelations.

Iconicity? Iconic level? What’s all that?

Look at the Two of Coins (Deux de Deniers) from the Marseilles Tarot. Two yellow coins comprise the card’s whole format, balancing each other. A band emphasizes the dynamic tension between both coins. Looking at the Two of Coins we are reminded of how one single coin reigned over the whole format in the Ace of Coins (As de Deniers). Now that a second coin came into ‘being’, they relate to each other through equity and balance, a balance that will be redefined with the arrival of a third coin on the Three of Coins (Trois de Deniers).

As soon as two elements start sharing the same space, they create a mutual tension that balances them. Think of two pugilists in a boxing ring, two cowboys ready to duel, a tiger and its prey, two lovers whose eyes lock across the distant corners of a bar, or the famous symbol of Ying & Yang. This transit from unity to duality is perfectly illustrated with total economy of resources in the Two of Coins. The distance between the idea and its representation is near zero. You only need one quick glance to get it.

Now let’s take a look at the Two of Pentacles on the Rider-Waite-Smith (RWS) deck. (I will be using the RWS deck for comparison here because it is the oldest deck in the tradition of fantasy Tarots, and the deck that started the trend of illustrating the pips, a gesture that implies making these cards less iconic, therefore limiting their meaning.)

The same two coins, now bearing each one a pentacle, have been inserted into a lemniscate. The symbol of infinite is used here to reiterate the tension between the two coins. On top of that, as if turning the band into a lemniscate wasn’t specific enough, the RWS’s authors also drew a young guy juggling with the two coins inside it.

Every time I look at this card, I ask myself the same question: “What is that guy doing there?”

The character and his lemniscate are moving the distance between the idea and its representation two steps back. In the Marseilles Tarot we have a card featuring two circles and a curve. On the RWS we have a card featuring two circles, a horizontal eight and a guy with a Turkish hat. The RWS deck uses three layers of elements to say what the Marseilles says with just one.

This comparison is perfect to illustrate the concept of iconicity and how it applies to the Tarot.

---

An ‘Icon’ is any image used to represent an idea. This is a concept that comes from Semiotics, the discipline which studies symbols and our relationship with them. (See Paul Williams’ Semiotics of Tarot treatise on this website)

Iconicity is a concept that comes also from Semiotics. It accounts for the conceived similarity or analogy between the form of a sign and its meaning. The shorter the path between an image and the concepts it represents, the more iconic image, the less detours we have to take to ‘get it’. A high iconic level is a desirable thing for an image because images have a particular quality: their appearance affects their meaning.

In his book ‘Understanding Comics’, Scott McCloud discusses how people respond much more to a cartoon figure than to a realistic image. This happens due to the high iconic level cartoons have. In McCloud’s words, rendering an image more iconic operates a process of “amplification through simplification”.

AMPLIFICATION THROUGH SIMPLIFICATION
What does this mean?

It means that the more iconic the image, the broader its representational capacity becomes. A simple image makes it possible for all of us to identify with it. Since “appearance affects meaning” we could say that, the simpler the image, the broader the meaning.

The classic example of this is the smiley face. A smiley face shows the higher iconic level possible for an image representing a human being. A smiley face is shortest the path between an image of a face, and a face itself. But it is because of this degree of abstraction that a smiley face represents not just one person, but every single human being on the planet, irrespective of age, sex, or race. A truly amazing thing!

As it stands, a smiley face is both you and me. It can also be my mother, your uncle, that funny guy on TV, a beloved friend and any stranger. A smiley face is so simple that it means both an individual and a whole race at once! This happens because the features of a human face have been streamlined and simplified to the maximum. All that wasn’t necessary to represent a face is eliminated, so we can get the idea of ‘face’ instantaneously.

Now, let’s go over the reverse process. Let’s take that smiley face and put a tiny straight black mustache on it.

Our smiley face would still be simple, but now it won’t mean an entire race. Instead of that it may now be Adolf Hitler, or Charlie Chaplin.

We can narrow this down even more if we add more details: a bowler hat would turn our Smiley face into Chaplin. A diagonal patch of hair will turn it into Hitler.

Those details are necessary for us to transform the smiley face into Chaplin or Hitler, but they are unnecessary if we want the smiley face to represent all of us. A mustache, a bowler hat, or a patch or hair limits what the image of a smiley face can do. These details limit the smiley face’s meaning, anchoring it to one single possibility.

What does this have to do with the Tarot de Marseille?

Look at I-Le Bateleur in the Marseilles Tarot. This card shows a street magician who is about to do a trick. As it stands, this image represents no magician in particular, but the idea of a magician as it was conceived in the time in which these cards were printed. That magician was the average magician of the time, and given the nature of the woodcarving process, also typical of that time, Le Bateleur’s features are simple enough for it to be any magician.

Compare I-Le Bateleur from the Marseilles Tarot with The Magician from the RWS Deck. We can see how the style in which the drawing was made is more realistic. His costume and his face are less generic, more detailed. A historical period, different from the one in which the cards were printed, is suggested by the character’s clothes, adding an additional layer of references, this is an additional detour from the idea of a magician.

Compare Le Bateleur’s hat with the RWS Magician’s hat. In the RWS the Magician doesn’t wear a hat anymore. Some people liked to see in Le Bateleur’s hat a resemblance to a lemniscate, so, the authors of the RWS got rid of the hat and drew a lemniscate instead. The gesture narrows down the representational power of the image lowering the card’s iconic level. Just as Hitler’s mustache does on a smiley face, this detail limits the card’s meaning.

Look at Le Bateleur’s arms. One hand holds a magic wand, while the other hand conceals a coin. This is a typical gesture of léger de main (sleight of hand) accounting for the very act of deception. Our Bateleur is any magician performing any magic trick.

Now look at the magician’s arms in the RWS. His hands have been repositioned to represent the connection between ‘above’ and ‘below’. Again, this detail limits the card’s meaning, giving us only one symbolic possibility.

Look at Le Bateleur’s table. The table top is full of objects historically and conceptually linked to a prestidigitator. Some people felt inclined to see in these elements a representation of the four suits of a playing card deck in their primitive form. This is a beautiful idea. Maybe these objects are indeed related to the four suits, or maybe they are just related with a magician and his craft. As the image stands in the Marseilles Tarot, it includes all of these possibilities.

Now look at The Magician of the RWS deck. The authors of this deck gave us oversized cups, pentacles, and swords. Instead of the idea of a magician, thanks to all these gestures we can see how a very specific kind of ceremonial magician is being represented by this Caucasian young man.

In other words, our smiley face became Charlie Chaplin.
Or Hitler.

And we are talking about the Rider-Waite-Smith deck—a deck of relatively simple iconography. Think on all the detours our mind has to take between the idea of a magician and Gandalf the Gray in the Lord of the Rings Tarot, for example.

While I won’t state that the Tarot de Marseille’s optical language is superior than the symbolic language of fantasy decks, I would dare to say that it is more iconic, and such higher level of iconicity is what gives the foundation and strength to this optical language.

Here, we would have to assume that by the time the TdM in its many variants was being printed, the vocabulary of the Tarot had reached its maturity, or at least some form of stability, making its imagery both repeatable and recognizable.

This is confirmed by the fact that no relevant change in the numbers of trumps, their order, or their main themes have been made since. Today we can observe considerable variations on Tarot’s make up, but its structure remains fixed. The Magician in one deck may be a Bohemian cat, while in another deck the same magician may be represented by a character from Planets of the Apes, but the card keeps referring us to the idea of a magician.

II-La Papesse’s general theme throughout history

The only exception to this would be the eradication of the original images from the pips. Their order and structure remains the same, but their imagery has been somehow ignored and substituted by fantastic allegories of uncertain connection with the originals.

This is crucial to show how all these attempts to ‘improve’ the Tarot resulted in less effective images. The Marseilles Tarot’s simpler images invite our minds to make more connections and analogies than any of the contemporary decks. It gives us more gaps to fill in. This analogical process makes it possible to get faster and deeper insights about our concerns.

I like to see the Tarot as a scalpel. We use it to cut deep into the unconscious mind. A scalpel only needs a swift, sharp, blade, and a steady hand. But some have turned the Tarot into a Swiss Army knife by adding to its images all kind of symbolic gadgets, assuming that by doing so we are adding more narrative elements to work with.

All these narrative elements take us away from experiencing instantaneous revelations. When we look at the Marseilles Tarot there is no need for storytelling. We just get a message.

The message happens in seconds because the cards are more iconic and closer to the original idea each card represents. There is no need to memorize the Arthurian Tales, Flash Gordon’s biography, or the Upanishads. All these things can enrich us as human beings, but they aren’t an intrinsic part of the experience of the Tarot’s optical language. Working with the TdM requires us to forget what we think we know about the Tarot. Working with the TdM we can achieve a unique immediacy of understanding but this will only happen if instead of approaching each image as a conceptual repository of occult knowledge, we experience them as optical events.

Enrique Enriquez

New York, December 2007
Visite his tarot website