THE TAROT OF GRUYERES

Roosevelt drew the 22 major arcana of the Tarot for a group exhibition
named "Le Tarot" that took place at
the Castle of Gruyères (Switzerland) in 1993.

A card deck was published for this occasion, with a booklet
containing poems by Marie-Claire Dewarrat about the major arcana of Tarot.
The Castle of Gruyères is the only official place where you can purchase this card deck.


The basis of this interpretation, besides the symbolic elements
that belong to the medieval tradition, is a reading of the ensemble
of the major arcana as 22 stages of a initiatic way to the knowledge.
This initiatic way is divided in two paths, called
dorian (of activity and reason) and ionic (of passivity and mystic).
The first path goes from the card number 1, The Juggler or Magician, 
to the card number 11, The Strength.
The second path goes from the card number 12, The Hanged Man,
to the card without number (or zero), The Fool.
We can dispose the arcana in two paths, as we can see below:
 

  1          2          3          4           5          6          7          8          9          10        11 

 0         21        20        19        18         17        16        15        14         13        12
 

This disposition shows not only the opposition
between the directions of the two parts of the iniciatic way, 
but also the opposition of the meanings
between the cards that correspond to each other.
For exemple, the Juggler (1) is an intelligent and skilful man, 
that knows exactly what he does, while the Fool (0) is the image
of a senseless person, walking blindfold, not knowing its destination.

This reading is largerly developed by Oswald Wirth
in his book "Le Tarot des Imagiers du Moyen Age".
His writing was the main reference for the interpretation by Roosevelt.

Roosevelt wanted to make still more evident
the opposition between the correspondent cards.
For that, he turned of 180º the composition of each drawing and
inversed the tones of the black and white backgrounds,
as it will be easy to observe in the series reproduced below
(the two rows are presented here vertically).

A new contribution to the traditional imagery of
Tarot, by Roosevelt, is the omnipresence of the nude.

To see each card in big size, click over the image.

 
 

 
 
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