I got a letter a couple of days ago from someone who had bought the deck and was disappointed. She wanted to know why the cards didn't feature more famous Victorians. She specifically felt that there should have been historical figures on the trumps. I don't feel I can reprint her letter, but here's my reply:
I'm not sure quite how to answer your question. The simple truth is that there aren't more historical figures in the deck because that isn't what the deck is about. What I mean is, I was trying to make a collage deck using Victorian art, not a deck about famous Victorian people.I have noticed in decks where all the cards (or even just all the trumps) are based on a theme of people, songs, stories or what-have-you, that at some point the system almost always breaks down. Some of the cards seem like a perfect fit, but some have to be shoehorned into place somewhat awkwardly. I also find it somewhat limiting to assign cards to people or stories: it attaches too much context, focusing the interpretation in one direction, away from other valid interpretations. I felt that using more anonymous art as source material left the cards freer to mean what the reader wants them to mean.
I did use historical figures for the court cards because I had decided to use Victoria as all the queens, so it seemed to make sense. But with the exception of Oscar Wilde as the Prince of Wands, all the courts are not so much famous icons, but people from Victoria's immediate circle. Having Wilde in there messed up the symmetry a bit, but his story was such a good fit for the Prince of Wands that I just had to.
I hope that answers your question. Thanks again for writing.
Although I was taken aback by the letter at first, in a way I'm glad she wrote because it helped me clarify my thoughts about an aspect of the deck I had never examined before. It simply never occurred to me that people would expect the deck to feature famous people on every card. And she wrote me back a very nice reply, that she had spent more time with the deck since her first email and was able to enjoy it for what it is, not what she expected it to be. Which made me feel much better about the whole exchange.
4 Comments
This made me smile. We had a similar issue with how much we were making a deck about Prague, and how much about our own view of Prague. We really didn't want some sort of "tourist guide book" in card form - there are some of the visitor "must-sees" that we didn't want to include. On the other hand, some things that are very obscure are in - because we love them or feel them to be significant (e.g. two tiny statues from the front of an out-of-the-way government building have become the couple on our Two of Cups).
You just can't meet everyone's expectations - you're right, you need to be true to your own aims and imagination, because in the end it's the only way to do a deck with a real personality and integrity.
Glad your correspondent took another look and enjoyed the deck after all!
Best wishes.
Hi Karen! I checked out your Tarot of Prague, it's a wonderful deck. Really beautiful.
That's interesting that you made a deliberate decision about whether to use only well-known imagery in your deck, but for me it was a much less conscious process: while I was working on it, if someone had suggested to me that I should put famous people on all the cards, I would have said no, that's not what the deck is about. But as it was I never even thought about it until getting this letter a few days ago.
Yes, it's interesting. It never occurred to me that the Victoria Regina was in some specific historical way "about" Victorian England (I have the deck and like it very much indeed - of course!) But I suppose it's not so surprising that someone would make that assumption.
With our deck, we had an encounter with one souvenir shop owner who said to us "you're fools, you should just take a quick picture of things like the Charles Bridge and put that on the cards - that's all that tourists expect - not all this stuff that takes time to design." Hey ho. We did not put the deck into his shop! At least no-one's suggested to you "a quick photo of 1001 famous Victorians and bobs your uncle!" LOL
By the way, I think VR has a tremendous feel of Victorian England, and the book provides some (for me) very new insights - but I never thought of going through it thinking "okay, so where is Florence Nightingale?" It's not the kind of historical inclusiveness I want from a tarot deck - it's atmosphere, aesthetics and emotion and new ways of looking at things that I need from tarot - and VR is great for that.
can u sand this to me how did they live like