Review by Spacegoat
To review this, the latest offering (July ’08) of Lo Scarabeo, I have to refer to 3 other decks, one of them another recent lo Scarabeo (the Universal Wirth Tarot), one of them one of the earliest ‘full’ tarot decks by Lo Scarabeo (the Crystal Tarot), and the third El Gran Tarot Esoterico, which influenced both the two last named, and the Contemplative Tarot, the deck under review.
El Gran Tarot Esoterico is a deck which is crudely drawn but has some real magic in it. Published in 1992 by Fournier in Spain, it has what I recognise as some references to the Old Religion – the ‘pagan’ Gods appearing albeit somewhat disguised as the winged Empress (the wings of course a reference to a supernatural being) and the Horned God, Her Consort Pan as the Emperor (whose helmet bears a stag’s antlers). Another clue to this Emperor’s connection to Pan/the Green Man is his cloak, covered with leaves.
By accident or serendipity therefore, El Gran Tarot is a pagan deck. Despite its crude art, I recognised the Pagan references and therefore felt affection for it. What further impressed me were the minor arcana, and now I come to the reason for my reference to this deck in connection with three Lo Scarabeo decks.
Since the Grandmother and Grandfather of all contemporary tarots (the Waite/Smith and the Crowley/Harris), the Tarot renaissance which began in earnest in the late 1960s has seen hundreds of decks basing their imagery on one of these 2 classics – in 95% of cases the Waite/Smith. Whilst not in any way comparing El Gran Tarot Esoterico to either of these, there’s no doubt that Lo Scarabeo have been impressed enough by its minor arcana to model three of their decks on them.
At this point its worth making the observation that, despite publishing tarots for over 20 years, Lo Scarabeo’s first ten years saw them publish primarily 22-card, major-card only decks. ‘The Crystal Tarot’ published in 1995 was in fact an expanded version of an earlier 22 card deck they’d published already called ‘Tarocchi di Vetro’. They simply re-issued the original paintings from the major arcana for the full 78 card deck, and based the remaining 56 cards on the minors from El Gran Tarot Esoterico.
And now, thirteen years further on, Lo Scarabeo have done the same thing with both the ‘Universal Wirth’ and ‘Contemplative’ tarots. The majors are new paintings – and in both decks very good – but both decks have been ‘padded out’ with re-workings of El Gran’s minor arcana.
In fairness, the images have been somewhat re-imagined – but they are clearly based on El Gran. For example, the Ace of Pentacles within El Gran is simply a yellow coin with a pentacle on it, and the roots of a tree beneath. Within the ‘Universal Wirth’ the same card shows a yellow coin with the 12 astrological signs within it, again with tree roots both beneath and above. The same card within the ‘Contemplative’ shows a yellow coin sitting on the petals of a flower, no tree roots this time. El Gran’s ace of swords is a sword thrust downward into the sea, killing a crab. Crystal Tarot’s ace is exactly the same, but the hand holding the sword appears from the left, not the right. Universal Wirth’s ace is the same again, but the hand appears from the right as in the El Gran, the crab is now a crayfish, and a crescent moon appears either side of the sword. Contemplative’s ace differs completely, being the same as that within the Waite/Smith.
However, by and large, despite minor differences, the imagery on the minors of these three decks from lo Scarabeo are the same as those on El Gran Tarot Esoterico.
Am I complaining? Well, sort of. I’d be fed up if they do it again. It makes me wonder if they’re reminiscing about the days when they published only 22 card decks. It’s very clear on their latest El Gran clone that the minors were painted by a different artist (un-named) that executed the majors (Adriano Buldrini). The addition of the El Gran Tarot’s minor imagery does make me feel as though they are simply ‘padding out’ a deck which really should simply have been published as a 22 card set. If this is the case, then I wish it had been published as one of their now sadly extinct ‘Tarot D’Arte’ series – large, 22 card sets beautifully printed on good-quality cardstock, lovingly encased in a slip-case. The larger size allowed the cards’ admirers to relax and enjoy the images without the close scrutiny required to properly appreciate cards printed in the standard size.
Having said that, I really think that out of the 3 ‘El Gran clones’ as I call them, the Contemplative Tarot is the best. I suppose I should mention there are a few quirks about this tarot that make it stand out from all other decks. The first is that not only are the cards non-reversible (the image on the back of the cards is not a mirror-image), but the cards’ backs are different colours – I’ve never seen this before! Swords are blue, wands orange, pentacles yellow and cups green. The backs of the majors are gold, except for the Fool, which is black. The other stand-out feature is that although the majors are numbered and ordered in the traditional way, the cards’ titles are either ‘man’, ‘divine’ or ‘universe’.
Finally, I’d like to say ‘Happy 21st anniversary Lo Scarabeo!’ Thank you for keeping my love of the Tarot very happily fed and watered all these wonderful years.
SpaceGoat is a music-therapist and teacher, based in London, UK. His current music project can be heard at MySpace and if you have time on your hands and love the guitar, you may also like to visit his works at Youtube.
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