Tarot by HH
Having taken a look at the Fool from an assortment of antique decks, a reconstructed version of the venerable RWS, a cultural deck, and a modern deck let us now look at a post-modern version of the unnumbered card
Tarot of the Origins Sergio Toppi, Artist Copyright Lo Scarabeo 2000 A scan of this card can be seen here; [url=http://groups.yahoo.com/group/InTheCards/files/Cards%20/Trumps/0/Origin0.gif]Toppi's Fool[/url] Toppi’s deck has been described as uncomfortable, forbidding, brutal, foreboding…it is all of these descriptors and more
However, it is a deck that holds great appeal for me, not for its art, nor even for its form, but for the visceral reaction to the content
That may seem oxymoronic, but subjectively this deck *works* as tarot without necessarily being artistically appealing
In point of fact, the art could best be defined as disturbing and disturbed
This deck details the Fool’s journey in a way that is, for me, memorable, understandable, and seductive
Toppi’s Fool is iconoclastic
He breaks all the rules of the antique decks, the occult decks, and the modern decks
He is certainly not childlike, nor is he handsome, nor does he evoke a sense of sympathy, ire, or comic relief
He is neither the happy wanderer nor the homeless tramp
It would be easy to dismiss this Fool as being foolish
If we give more than a cursory glance at both the art and the symbology we will find that like other Fools there is depth, breadth, and meaning to this Fool that is not foolish
Although I would be the first to admit that this card raises far more questions that it answers
The LWB is not particularly enlightening: 0 The Fool: the incomprehensible being
Represents inspiration, Creativity, a situation which arrives at its Peak
Is this Fool a Tuareg from the Sahara, or is he one of the Berber tribesmen from (what is now) Morocco? Or is he a member of the tribe known as Na Fir Ghorm:- ? Or a Blue Man of the Minch? Or is he a member of the racial type from pre-glacial Europe known as The Cro-Magnoid Blue Man? We can discount this Fool being a member of Blue Man Group, who regularly appear at Las Vegas hotels as entertainers…they are all bald
What about that egg-cum-hat? What is the significance of that? Is he wearing it, hatching it, or giving us a message? Is this the Cosmic Egg and its representation of the Solar Eclipse or is it symbolic of what Joseph Chilton Pearce calls the challenge of the crack in the Cosmic egg: the challenge to our seemingly stable reality and what we *think* we see? The Fool wears a complicated necklace of shells
In tarot seashells and their shapes represent protection, defense, and fertility
This then is a fitting necklace for this Fool to sport
The fact that he is:- wearing shells may give us a clue as to his origins…
other posts in this tarot thread
The Fool by HH
The Chinese Tarot Deck's Fool by HH
by WolfChild
by HH
by WolfChild
by HH
*Traditional* Fools by HH
Lösche's Cosmic Tarot by HH
by HH
Some random thoughts, Fool that I Am
by HH
The Fool - couragous? by startide
by HH
The Fool by Witchywoman
by HH
by Witchywoman
by HH
by bluemoon
by bea