“Optical Naturalism” and Tarot Reading
AUTHOR’S NOTE: This is a fairly complex topic that will take some doing to sort out (not to mention a couple of very long sentences).
In The Esoteric Tarot: Ancient Sources Rediscovered in Hermeticism and Cabalah), tarot historian Ronald Decker mentions that Renaissance artists like Leonardo da Vinci often applied the principles of optical naturalism (technically an Italian painterly technique known as sfumato that involves blurred outlines and the play of light and shade that together define volume). He was talking specifically about its use in the reconstitution of “hieroglyphic” images of the kind exemplified by printmaker Albrecht Durer in his archeologically-incorrect rendering of the lexicon of the Hieroglyphica, a pseudo-Egyptian document that Durer illustrated in a decidedly European style. (Decker calls Durer’s figures “volumetric” rather than entirely two-dimensional like true hieroglyphs).
Although I’m not really sure what Decker intended by this reference as it relates to the tarot, upon reading it I was reminded of the impressionistic way that tarot imagery is often approached as we free-associate from the symbolism. When we look at a card, we tend to see it not as a literal expression of fact but rather as an archetypal concept that speaks to the intuition and the emotions.
Even when it isn’t visual, this “blurring” occurs in the mind of the beholder as the imagination is given free rein to improvise on the general theme of the card. I tend to think of it as a “soft focus” produced by taking two steps back and squinting our mental vision. Of course, this can give rise to some rather fanciful embellishments that may have nothing to do with the actual circumstances of the question or topic, and the reader must then reel in and reformulate any extravagant notions if they are to make sense to the querent. Some never get there and just assume that their mystical insights are unimpeachable, as if they have a “hotline” to Divine wisdom, and seekers can make of it what they will. Forgive me, but I can’t help but recall the crowd in the grandstand scoffing at Richard Lewis as “Prince John” in Robin Hood, Men in Tights: “Bu . . . (cough, cough, cough) . . . shit!”
Know that I’m not a complete literalist, although I do appreciate the opinion of Paul Fenton-Smith that tarot reading doesn’t require intuition; everything we need to make a successful forecast is contained in the images themselves with no need for creative theorizing. I had some formal art training many years ago and my own style is often surrealistic, so I feel some empathy for the mystics. But interpreting the cards is ultimately a verbal act, not a wholly optical one, so we must be able to translate what we see into coherent meaning that has a bearing on reality, even if we’re only making psychological observations that can be elusive by their very nature.
As chiefly a storytelling art, tarot reading must typically deal with charming abstractions derived from visual improvisation, and the diviner is charged with drawing parallels between these inventive perceptions and projected events in the querent’s life. (My suspicion is that mystical soothsayers rely more on charisma than on demonstrated credibility in making this happen.) When working with the traditional knowledge base, the reader has ready-made anecdotes that can be sculpted into details that are relevant to the subject of the reading, the use of which can involve much less “suspension of disbelief” (not to mention fewer mental gymnastics) because there are metaphysical antecedents that can be invoked.
Of course, the practitioner must first obtain a firm grasp of the fundamental card meanings; in my opinion this is the best place to start, after which the core ideas can be expanded in almost any direction via an infusion of creative insight in the form of intuition or, more precisely in my own work, inspiration, imagination and ingenuity. Even the most visionary of architects must acquire a solid, practical understanding of the intended materials of construction — both their strengths and their weaknesses — before settling on a design. They can’t all be like Coleridge’s Kubla Khan, building his delightful “dome in air,” nor can we as tarot readers.
Originally published at http://parsifalswheeldivination.wordpress.com on April 4, 2024.
