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Bourgeois Tarot

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Tarot Nouveau oudlers circa 1910

The Tarot Nouveau, French Tarot Nouveau or Bourgeois Tarot deck is a pattern of tarot cards. As such it differs from those tarot decks used in fortune-telling, such as the Tarot of Marseilles and Rider-Waite decks, in that the Tarot Nouveau is designed solely for playing the various tarot card games for which the 78-card tarot deck was originally devised. In the French language, this deck is often called the tarot à jouer or playing tarot. This usage is distinct from cartomancy and other divinatory purposes, for which the tarot is most commonly known outside Continental Europe. This deck is most commonly found in France, Wallonia, Romandy, and Québec for French Tarot; and Denmark for Danish Tarok.[1][2]

Origin

An early German Tarock trump card, showing center indices

This pattern originated in the late 19th century with the C.L. Wüst cardmaker of Frankfurt, Germany.[3][4][5][6] This earlier edition lacked the corner indices found on the later 20th century version published by French cardmakers such as Grimaud, but the values of trumps changed from Latin numerals common on older decks to Arabic numerals used in modern writing. These numerals were placed in the center of the panels in a Fraktur font similar to cards which were used for the German Tarock game of Cego. In the early 1900s, French cardmakers appropriated this pattern and would later add the corner indices now found on most modern card decks.[7] The largest manufacturers of this pattern are Cartamundi (and its subsidiaries) and Piatnik & Söhne. Today there are at least two standard designs available. The most common is produced by Ducale, Fournier and Grimaud for French Tarot; the trumps (tarots) depict scenes of well-to-do bourgeoisie at home and in the town and country, with numerals in each corner. The second design is one by F.X. Schmid; the trumps (tarocks) depict more rustic, rural scenes of peasant folk rather; the numerals are central above the individual scenes. The International Playing-Card Society classifies both types as Bourgeois Tarot.[8]

Cards

The cards bear the French suits of spades, hearts, diamonds and clubs, rather than the Italian suits of swords, cups, coins and batons (typical in tarot decks used for cartomancy) or the traditional German suits of hearts, bells, acorns and leaves (commonly seen on Tarock and Schafkopf decks in East Germany, Austria and Hungary). The "pip" and court cards of the Tarot Nouveau are similar in format to those of the traditional 52-card deck, with the addition of the knight (chevalier) face card.

The atouts or trumps vary in design. Those of the 78-card, Fournier type depict genre scenes of whimsical early 19th-century social activities of the well-to-do European bourgeoisie, hence a common alternate name for this deck, the "Bourgeois Tarot". In this design, the cards have corner indices; on older packs only at the top left/bottom right, with the manufacturer's initials at the top right/bottom left. Modern packs have four corner indices.[3]

By contrast, the tarocks of the 54-card, Schmid packs used in southwest Germany for games such as Cego and Dreierles, have more rustic and rural scenes and the indices are placed at the top centre at both ends of the double-headed cards.[3]

Both corner indices and the reversible art of the courts and trumps facilitate the identification of cards when fanned in a player's hand.

Composition

Tarot Nouveau court cards with English indices

The Fournier type of Tarot Nouveau deck, like most (but not all) tarot decks, is composed of 78 cards. 56 are suited in the traditional French suits, with 14 cards per suit; ten "pip" cards with values 1 to 10 (the ace bears the number 1 instead of the familiar "A", and usually ranks low), and four court cards: jack (valet), knight (chevalier or cavalier), queen (dame) and king (roi). The other 22 are the 21 atouts or trumps and one fool.[3] The deck is thus primarily different from the 52-card poker deck in the existence of the separate trump "suit", and the addition of the knight court card. With these cards removed the deck is identical to the 52-card deck for playing purposes. The face cards do not use the Parisian pattern (portrait officiel) but have their own unique illustrations. The fool, though similar in appearance and function to the joker card of poker decks, has differing origins (see Joker for more information).

Trumps

The 21 trumps in a Tarot Nouveau deck each have two scenes taking up the graphic portion of the card, in a roughly reversible fashion (one scene is always face-up), but unlike the court cards which have similar reversible art, most of the cards' scenes are not rotationally symmetrical. Each card has one scene show an "urban" representation of a particular trait or idea (listed below), while the other side depicts a more "rural" interpretation. These themes, instead of the more historic depictions, such as those used in the Tarot de Marseille, (known in cartomancy as the "Major Arcana") were chosen to represent tarot trumps in Unicode 7.0.[9] The scenes depicted are as follows:[10]

General theme Card number Unicode character Card theme Urban representation Rural representation
The four ages 2 🃢 Childhood Children playing in the park Boys playing at the fête
3 🃣 Youth Group of youths in the park Three maidens in town clothes
4 🃤 Maturity In the office Women with children
5 🃥 Old Age Grandfather Grandmother
The four times of day 6 🃦 Morning Breakfast Mowing the wheat
7 🃧 Afternoon Discussion in the parlour Rest in the field
8 🃨 Evening Music room The family reunited on the doorstep
9 🃩 Night Returning home after hunting The night watch
The four elements 10 🃪 Earth The mine
Air Shepherd in the mountains
11 🃫 Water Boating on the lake
Fire The picnic
The four leisures 12 🃬 Dance Soirée Folk dance
13 🃭 Shopping The store The village store
14 🃮 Open air Hunting Fishing
15 🃯 Visual arts Photography Painting
The four seasons 16 🃰 Spring Gardener in the park Sheep shearing
17 🃱 Summer At the races Drying the wheat
18 🃲 Autumn At the market Threshing wheat
19 🃳 Winter Skating The vigil
The game 20 🃴 The game Cards Bowling
Folly 21 🃵 Collective The carnival The military parade
1 🃡 Individual The sad clown The fool and the ballerina

References

  1. ^ McLeod, John. French Tarot at Pagat.com. Retrieved 29 October 2016.
  2. ^ McLeod, John. Tarok (Danish) at Pagat.com. Retrieved 29 October 2016.
  3. ^ a b c d International Playing Card Society - The Bourgeois Tarot
  4. ^ Wintle, Simon. Wüst “Encyclopedic Tarot” at the World of Playing Cards. Retrieved 29 October 2016.
  5. ^ Wintle, Simon. Bourgeois Tarot at the World of Playing Cards. Retrieved 29 October 2016.
  6. ^ Mann, Sylvia (1990). All Cards on the Table. Leinfelden: Deutsches Spielkarten-Museum. pp. 67, 83, 315.
  7. ^ Wintle, Simon. Héron French tarot at the World of Playing Cards. Retrieved 29 October 2016.
  8. ^ Pattern Sheet 18 at i-p-c-s.org. Retrieved 5 September 2020.
  9. ^ Unicode playing cards 7.0 (PDF)
  10. ^ [1] at Tarot Club d'Orphin (78). Retrieved 29 October 2016.
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