{ feuilleton }

Surrealist cartomancy

Reworking the illustrations of the standard fifty-two card playing deck has become quite a common thing in recent years with numerous themed decks being produced in costly limited editions. The same goes for decks of Tarot cards which have now been mapped across a number of different magical systems and produced in sets that often add little to the philosophy of the Tarot but merely vary the artwork. This wasn’t always the case, and certainly not in the 1940s when André Breton and a group of fellow Surrealists produced designs for a fascinating deck of cards that hybridises the Tarot and the more mundane pack of playing cards in an attempt to create something new.

The Jeu de Marseilles was named after the city of its creation, and it’s no coincidence that one of the most well-known medieval Tarot designs is the Marseilles deck. Breton and his artist friends—Wifredo Lam, Max Ernst, Jacqueline Lamba, Oscar Dominguez, Victor Brauner, Jacques Hérold, André Masson and Frédéric Delanglade—were stranded in the French port along with many other artists, writers and intellectuals attempting to escape Nazi-occupied Europe and gain passage to the America. The creation of the card deck became a way of passing the time during several months of anxious waiting.

Typically for a group that had already spent a decade analysing and deconstructing all available artistic media, it wasn’t enough to merely redecorate an existing pack of cards, Breton wanted a thorough reinvention along Surrealist principles. So the traditional suits were renamed accordingly: Flames (red) for love and desire, Stars (black) for dreams, Wheels (red) for revolution, and Locks (black) for knowledge. Even though the number of cards was kept at fifty-two, this highly symbolic structure places the deck closer to the Tarot arrangement of Wands, Cups, Swords and Discs, rather than the usual Clubs, Hearts, Spades and Diamonds. Breton’s socialist sympathies meant that having a royal hierarchy of King and Queen lording it over a humble Jack was quite unacceptable; these were subsequently re-named Genius, Siren and Magus. Again, the name Magus here is interesting for the added occult reference it gives to the design. Alfred Jarry’s grotesque Pa Ubu (above) was nominated as the Joker.

Flames: Ace; Genius: Baudelaire; Siren: Mariana Alcofardo; Magus: Novalis.

Stars: Ace; Genius: Lautréamont; Siren: Alice (from Lewis Carroll); Magus: Freud.

Wheels: Ace; Genius: De Sade; Siren: Lamiel (from Stendhal); Magus: Pancho Villa.

Locks: Ace; Genius: Hegel; Siren: Hélène Smith; Magus: Paracelcus.

The Jeu de Marseilles was eventually produced as a proper deck of cards (with the original sketches being reworked slightly) and has been reprinted several times since. Copies can still be found at reasonable prices from specialist card dealers.

Thanks to Eroom Nala for research assistance!

The Invasion of Thunderbolt Pagoda

ANNOUNCING THE AKASHIC RECORD DVD SERIES – A BASTET EXCLUSIVE

“THE INVASION OF THUNDERBOLT PAGODA” DVD FEATURING “BRAIN DAMAGE” & “FROM THE MYLAR CHAMBER” SLIDESHOW

BASTET, in collaboration with SATURNALIA and THE IRA COHEN AKASHIC PROJECT, is proud to announce the launch of THE AKASHIC RECORD DVD SERIES.

Celebrated internationally for more than 40 years, and screening this Friday, March 17 as part of the “Day for Night” program at the 2006 Whitney Biennial, Ira Cohen’s THE INVASION OF THUNDERBOLT PAGODA director’s cut DVD is now available for pre-order exclusively through BASTET / ARTHUR magazine.

Ira Cohen, director: “It was in 1968, the year before Woodstock, between the giant bottle of liquid mercury Tony Conrad found in a doorway on 42nd St. and the Mylar chamber, we experienced a shared voyage conceived in three parts: The Opium Dream, Shaman and Heavenly Blue Mylar Pavilions, an alchemical journey born of out common consciousness – culminating in the akashic bindu drop swirling in the sky’s reflected azure. No minimalism here, but a maximalist adventure…”

Continue reading “The Invasion of Thunderbolt Pagoda”

They’re back…

The Sopranos, season 6.

The art of Thomas Eakins, 1844–1916

The Wrestlers.

Born in Philadelphia, Eakins studied at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, where he would later teach, from 1862, before travelling to Paris where he enrolled at the École des Beaux-Arts. His final six months in Europe were spent in Spain. Returning to Philadelphia in July 1870, he set himself up as a portrait painter with financial support from his father.

Eakins’ study of anatomy extended to the study of human movement and in 1884 he assisted the photographer Muybridge in his studies of human and animal locomotion. Eakins himself was a keen photographer and produced a number of photographic studies of the figure in motion.

Many of his paintings depict the athletic male body in action. The importance of the male figure for Eakins is particularly evident in the many photographs that he took throughout the 1880s of himself and his (mostly male) students posing nude either in the studio or else engaged in various outdoor sporting activities.

Nudity both inside the studio and beyond was intrinsic to Eakins’ aim of fostering camaraderie amongst his students, as he sought to recreate within his circle the ethos and practices of an ancient Greek Academy.

The painting The Swimming Hole (c. 1884), which was based upon photographs taken by Eakins and depicts a group of seven nude men comprised of Eakins and his students, can be viewed as a contemporary rendering of a classical Arcadian theme.

Following a dispute between Eakins and the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts over students admissions, the Board of Directors forced him to resign in 1886 – ostensibly over a claim that he had removed the loincloth from a male model in a mixed life drawing class.

Eakins died in Philadelphia, his growing reputation as a key figure in American realist painting secured by exhibitions held in New York and Philadelphia. After his death, a number of his negatives of nude men were destroyed.

Elsewhere on { feuilleton }
• The gay artists archive

The Triangular Lodge

England is filled with curious buildings, follies as they’re commonly known, most of them the creation of wealthy landowners with time on their hands and a degree of imagination. Many of them are fake ruins, imitations of antiquity or classical architecture intended to add a degree of romance to a picturesque landscape. Some buildings are simply unusual, however, and one of the strangest of all is Sir Thomas Tresham’s Triangular Lodge near the village of Rushton, Northants. Nearly ever aspect of the building’s design and decoration relates to the number three, a reference to the Holy Trinity and Tresham’s religious convictions.

Continue reading “The Triangular Lodge”