{"id":12961,"date":"2022-06-30T12:14:22","date_gmt":"2022-06-30T18:14:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=12961"},"modified":"2022-06-30T20:15:01","modified_gmt":"2022-07-01T02:15:01","slug":"the-woman-who-invented-the-minor-arcana","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=12961","title":{"rendered":"The Woman Who Invented the Minor Arcana"},"content":{"rendered":"

Reading a new article on Pamela Coleman Smith<\/a>, the artist responsible for what is often called the “Waite deck” among Tarot users, this popped out at me:<\/p>\n

Tarot has been around since early 15th-century Italy , spun off from traditional playing cards. The 78 cards are split into two groups called the Major and Minor Arcana. The Major Arcana features allegorical characters like the moon, sun, the fool and the lovers, while the Minor Arcana is divided into numbered and face cards in four suits: wands, swords, cups and pentacles. While prior decks were less pictorial in nature, Smith’s is filled with lush imagery that makes their interpretation easier for the reader.<\/p>\n

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Smith’s Two of Swords (Yale University Library).<\/p><\/div><\/dt>\n

<\/dt>\n<\/dl>\n<\/div>\n

“He was the one who instigated the deck, there’s no doubt about that,” [curator Barbara] Haskell((Smith’s work appears in At the Dawn of a New Age: Early Twentieth Century American Modernism <\/a> at the Whitney Museum in New York.))said. “And he probably had quite a bit of input into the Major Arcana.”<\/p>\n

Although Waite may have directed the concepts for those 22 cards, the imagery was all Smith’s own. And since Waite was less interested in the Minor Arcana, which comprises 56 cards and were often more simplistic graphics like playing cards, those ideas were “totally hers,” according to Haskell.<\/strong> Smith completed the 78 images from her Chelsea studio in London, using ink and watercolor.<\/p>\n

Smith’s influences for the imagery included the indulgent ink illustrations by English artist Aubrey Beardsley, the luminous paintings of the Pre-Raphaelites, the saturated color blocking of traditional Japanese woodblock prints, and the ornamental details of Art Nouveau, according to Haskell.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Had she received a percentage instead of a fixed fee for her work, she (or her heirs) might have\u00a0 made quite a lot, but she took the ready money, as so often creators must.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Reading a new article on Pamela Coleman Smith, the artist responsible for what is often called the “Waite deck” among Tarot users, this popped out at me: Tarot has been around since early 15th-century Italy , spun off from traditional playing cards. The 78 cards are split into two groups called the Major and Minor […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[45,159],"class_list":["post-12961","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-art","tag-tarot"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6xQTg-3n3","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":13945,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=13945","url_meta":{"origin":12961,"position":0},"title":"A ‘Cookbook’ for Tarot","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"February 24, 2025","format":false,"excerpt":"When I was in college and learning to cook, I looked at a lot of cookbooks -- books owned by my friends who were \"foodies\" avant la lettre. But the trouble with cookbooks is that they were one self-contained recipe after another. \"What I need,\" I thought, \"was a 'process'\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Tarot\"","block_context":{"text":"Tarot","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=tarot"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/02\/wildermuth-peoples-guide-to-tarot.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":8412,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=8412","url_meta":{"origin":12961,"position":1},"title":"Some “Spare” Links and the “Witchcraft Aesthetic”","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"January 9, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"\u00b6 The University of Heidelberg has scanned and put online a 1916 issue of Form, a small British art magazine containing numerous illustrations by Austin Osman Spare, noted English occultist and artist. Here is a sample. \u00b6 If I were visiting Milan, I would visit this Tarot painter's studio and\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"art\"","block_context":{"text":"art","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=art"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/01\/form11.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":14029,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=14029","url_meta":{"origin":12961,"position":2},"title":"Tarot Thoughts — And Eden Gray’s Surprising Story","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"June 25, 2025","format":false,"excerpt":"I decided to get more serious about Tarot after all these years. Maybe some day people will see me as a wise old man, but I will need some props \u2013\u00a078 of them, to be precise. I actually learned to use the I Ching in a superficial bohemian way before\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Tarot\"","block_context":{"text":"Tarot","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=tarot"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/eden-gray-doctor-x.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":5867,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=5867","url_meta":{"origin":12961,"position":3},"title":"Tarot Cards \u2014\u00a0They Are for Catholics Too","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"July 17, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"Thomas L. McDonald, Patheos' \"Technology | Culture | Catholicism\" blogger has a five-part series on the history of the Tarot cards. It starts here. The real history of the Tarot, however, begins in the early 15th century in Italy, and their story is an important part of gaming and cultural\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"history\"","block_context":{"text":"history","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=history"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":8366,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=8366","url_meta":{"origin":12961,"position":4},"title":"Thinking How the Tarot Smuggled Paganism to the Present","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"December 13, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"In my twenties, the Tarot was about the most \"occult\" thing around that I could bring out in public settings. I learned to read the cards semi-competently and had some adventures thereby. When I made it through an evening of reading for casual strangers in a nightclub, I figured that\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"esotericism\"","block_context":{"text":"esotericism","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=esotericism"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"\/\/ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com\/e\/ir?t=soutrocknatub-20&l=am2&o=1&a=0715645722","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":10222,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=10222","url_meta":{"origin":12961,"position":5},"title":"A North American Tarot Deck","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"February 11, 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"This would make a nice bookend to the American Renaissance Tarot \u2014 Emi Brady's North American Tarot. For more than a decade, Denver artist and printmaker Emi Brady toyed with the idea of her own tarot card deck. She \u201cwasn\u2019t ready\u201d until more recently. \u201cTechnically, I wasn\u2019t ready and I\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Colorado\"","block_context":{"text":"Colorado","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=colorado"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/02\/cpr-swolf_brady-tarot_dsc6869.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/02\/cpr-swolf_brady-tarot_dsc6869.jpg?resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/02\/cpr-swolf_brady-tarot_dsc6869.jpg?resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/02\/cpr-swolf_brady-tarot_dsc6869.jpg?resize=700%2C400 2x"},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12961","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=12961"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12961\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12972,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12961\/revisions\/12972"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=12961"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=12961"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=12961"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}