Golden Tarot Deck
by Kat Black
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Book Reviews of Golden Tarot Deck
Book Review: Gorgeous Deck With Gilded Edging
Summary: 5 Stars
"Golden Tarot is a compilatioin of collages from artwork of the late Middle Ages and early Renaissance. Poignant images of gentle beauty and human frailty came from a time of violence, pestilence, and oppression. These images speak to me of a truth that is timeless, and hope that flowers even in the darkest conditions. It is my hope that they speak to you as well." -- Kat Black, creator of The Golden Tarot.
I have never been drawn to traditional Tarot decks, especially those fashioned after the Rider-Waite. Rather, I tend to go for the funky, the symbolic, and the high tech. One of the reasons for my preference is because modern life seems so far removed from the period in which traditional Tarot was created.
So I wasn't sure what to expect from Kat Black's Golden Tarot. I knew nothing about the deck, other than people were giving it high praise. When I opened the sturdy box with the lid that comes off the top, I was intrigued that therein was a deck with gilded edges. Remmeber your Grandmother's Bible? The one who's pages shined so brightly when closed? This luxurious deck has that same gilt edging. The cards follows traditional Tarot, with 78 cards total. The Minor Arcana is fully illlustrated like the Majors. The images are printed on heavy cardboard with a matte golden border. The back is a tapestry of subdued shades of camel and rust. You can't tell from the backs if a card is upright or reversed.
The most unsual aspect of Golden Tarot is that deck creator Kat Black has digitally collaged images from various lesser-known paintings from a period she calls International Gothic. This period of time, 1200-1500 A.D., evolved into the Reniassance. She deliberately avoided using art by well-known artists such as da Vinci and Michelangelo, and most of the paintings used for the deck are hanging in European churches. (A sight that most of us will never see!)
The collaged images are so seamless, that I didn't know I was looking at a digitally collaged deck until I read the 200 page bound booklet included in the package. I even showed my artist husband, and he had no idea, either! The images on the cards are truly breathtaking. I feel like I'm looking at a masterpiece with each and every one. I'm sure that Ms. Black intends this deck to actually be read not just admired as an art deck, but they're so gorgeous I'm reluctant to read with them! (So don't expect information on how they read...I'm too busy drooling over the images!)
The high-quality booklet not only contains the standard meanings for the images (upright and reversed), but also Appendices that list every part that was digitally collaged and the painting that it came from. The Hermit is one of the cards that I look at first when checking out a new deck, and its rendering in this deck resonated deeply with me: it's a picture of a gray-bearded St. Francis of Assisi standing in a darkened forest. A deer is at his side, he's holding a latern that gives off little light, and a gray cat is chasing a quail. The man's body and deer, the latern, the forest, the head, quail, and cat all come from different sources. As I mentioned, you cannot tell that this picture is collaged! An amazing technological feat indeed.
Kat Black mentions that this version of the Golden Tarot took 1,500 hours to produce. This deck was originally web-only, but fans of her work urged her to create an actual deck. Tarot enthusiasts and deck collectors alike will be much richer for having Black's breath-taking creation in hand.
(To see 10 card images from this deck, visit the Reviews--Decks section at JanetBoyer.com)
Janet Boyer, author of The Back in Time Tarot Book: Picture the Past, Experience the Cards, Understand the Present (coming Fall 2008 from Hampton Roads Publishing)
Book Review: If you like collage, you'll LOVE this deck!
Summary: 4 Stars
I have collected well over 100 tarot and oracular decks over the past 15 years and am an artist myself. I can first-hand appreciate the amount of work that goes into creating a tarot deck. Ms. Black has succeeded in creating one of the most beautiful collage-based tarot decks out in the market today. For fans of medieval tarot decks, the Golden Tarot is a must-have deck.
In days of old before the advent of computers and graphics programs, collage was done by hand with the images being painstakingly cut out with scissors, then glued to a larger piece of paper in order to create a coherent whole. Ms. Black states in her Introduction that as a child she amused herself for many hours creating collages the old-fashioned way, but that the Golden Tarot was created with the use of digital collage with each image consisting of at least 20 layers. However, you would never know by examining this deck that it is a digital production. Even the tiniest element of each image is sharp and clear. Although personally I am not a fan of digitally created decks as the source method is usually quite obvious, I had no clue this deck was digital in origin until I took the time to read the Introduction, which was several weeks after constantly using the deck for my own readings.
As for readings, this deck did not require any "seasoning" on my part prior to its initial use. Normally, for those of you unfamiliar with the process, upon buying a tarot deck, it must first be cleansed of any energies it may have picked up during the production and shipping periods, and also cleared of energies it may have collected while sitting on a shelf in the store. Once this is accomplished, then you season the deck by placing your own unique energies into it (done in a wide variety of ways) so the deck will work for you. I was so enthralled with the images of the deck that I did a quick cleanse and began using it immediately. Right out of the box the Golden Tarot gave accurate and insightful readings.
Speaking of the box, this is one of those cool all-in-one all-inclusive packaging sets that I have grown to love as it makes storage of the cards and accompanying book hassle-free. The Golden Tarot comes in a box only slightly larger than the cards themselves. The box is heavy-duty reinforced cardboard with the exterior illustrated with three images from within the deck. The box is meant to be stored upright with the lid lifting directly off the top end of the box exposing the gold-gilded cards and accompanying book within.
The book is quite extensive and highly impressive. Once again, Ms. Black has put forth a tremendous amount of effort in producing all aspects of her wonderful deck. The book has 198 pages and is 4" X 2 " inches. The book includes Ms. Black's Introduction, a 10-page section on tarot spreads, and then a thorough discussion of the Major and Minor Arcanum. Each card is illustrated with a small black and white image. The book concludes with a two extensive appendices noting the sources of every image element of every card. That alone was a massive undertaking as Ms. Black first created the deck as a computer-image only deck and only much later did she have to go back in order to source all of her collage elements. A bibliography is also included that focuses on further reading.
I cannot recommend this deck highly enough. It is well suited to both beginner and advanced Readers alike. Years from now I firmly believe the Golden Tarot will be viewed as one of the all-time classic tarot decks.
Do yourself a favor. Buy this deck.
Book Review: A Major Disappointment
Summary: 2 Stars
I had seen the Golden Tarot deck advertised here and there, and I had read the customer reviews in amazon.com. I was impressed, and decided to order a deck right away.
After I received the deck and did a few divinations with it, I felt humiliated that I had thrown away twenty-five dollars on it.
The only positive thing I could say about the deck is that the guilt edges are quite handsome.
On the minus side, however, I have several things to say. First, U.S. Games always offers its books and decks either separately or as a set. That way, when you wear out a deck or bend or lose a card and want to get a new deck, you can purchanse one without having to buy an entire book/deck set. The Golden Tarot is an unfortunate exception to this.
Second, the deck is almost impossible to shuffle. The cards are just slightly larger than the standard Rider deck cards, making them just slightly more difficult to handle. And, the cards are made of thick, stiff cardboard. It is quite difficult bending back each half, and then trying to let the cards riffle cleanly off the thumbs. Most often, the cards interleave in clumps, making thorough shuffling quite difficult. The deck measures 1 1/8 inches thick, making it the thickest Tarot card deck in existence anywhere. This unprecedented thickness just adds to the difficulty of handling it.
I had previously heard about the magnificent artwork of the cards, and how the creator, Kat Black, had used numerous paintings of the late Middle Ages and early Renaissance periods to create nice montages whose images approximated traditional renderings. The stiff cardboard that the cards are printed on, however, seem to be of a low-grade quality that creates low-contrast renderings of the original artwork. The pictures on the cards, in other words, are dull and muted in their coloration. There is no color saturation or aesthetic sparkle to any of them. The colors are not vibrant at all, but tend to be monochromatic.
I was also put off by Kat Black's comment in the Introduction portion of her instruction book that she personally uses the Tarot as a guide to "personal insight" rather than as a means of fortune-telling. The implication is that fortune-telling is somehow beneath her, and that "personal insight" and fortune-telling are somehow two different things. The vast majority of the people I do readings for ask me divinatory questions of the fortune-telling type. And through these fortune-telling divinations, these people obtain valuable "personal insight" about their problems. I find it both inexplicable and offensive that Kat Black tries to put down this most common and useful kind of divinatory questioning.
I do not see how this Golden Tarot deck is going to stay in print very long. No one but the most masochistic is going to want to try to shuffle the deck more than two or three times. Then they will put it in their dresser drawer where it will stay forever. Not too many people will want to admit they wasted twenty-five dollars on this deck, but I sure did.
Book Review: Wonderful, well-crafted and meaningful deck
Summary: 5 Stars
Kudos all around for this deck. It is a shame that Amazon (at this writing) does not offer any pictures of this deck. It is truly a beautiful deck. If you are wondering, I would suggest looking at aeclectic.net or tarotpassages.com to see if they are offering reviews or pictures of the cards in this deck.What makes this deck truly special is the work put into it on both the creative end and the production end. Kat Black put great work into establishing a wonderful medieval feel to this deck. Though it is a collage, it doesn't come off looking like a collage. She also avoided using familiar paintings so as to give this deck a freshness, like you are looking at something newly discovered.
Black also demonstrates a deep understanding of tarot symbology and infuses this deck with it. The trouble with many themed decks, such as those based on painters such as Da Vinci or Bosch, is that, though pretty, they are not good decks to do readings with. There are enough symbolic imagery in each card to get a deep reading with it. She bases the imagery on the well-known Waite/Smith imagery that will be recognizable to people who even only have a passing familiarity with tarot. Yet, it seems to have a deeper, older tradition tied to it.
U.S. Games production work here is phenomenal here also. The box is sturdy and compact, not allowing the cards to slide around, and also comes with Black's book, which is compact and comprehensive. She gives meanings that are not generic and offer not only her reasons for her choice of images, but gives the reader references to these elements.
I could go on and on, but, in brief, if you want a deck that it readable, feels like an old renaissance work, and is just generally beautiful, you cannot do better than this one!
Book Review: Digital Artwork
Summary: 4 Stars
I purchased this deck because I wanted something with beautiful, dark imagery, and something with historical significance. The composition of each image is based on Rider-Waite, making it a versatile and easy-to-read deck. It comes with a very complete and informative book, and and very nice cardboard case.
That being said, I was expecting better from the "digital collage" technique. Despite Ms. Black's description of her painstaking efforts to produce "high resolution" images, many of the elements in the pictures are clearly at a resolution too low to be suitable for printing. Ms. Black was apparently using a variety of online sources, rather than working from high-resolution scans of printed material, and this is painfully obvious on several cards. "The Hierophant," for example, has a high-resolution staff, but his face and clothing are clearly lower resolution, resulting in fuzzy, undefined edges. The dress on "The Empress," , and the sword on the "Ace of Swords" suffer the same shortcoming. On the other hand, some of the cards, such as "The High Priestess," have consistent high-resolution, and look great.
Overall, the deck is well designed, but attention to image quality and detail could have been much higher. If you are looking for a complete and informative deck with a reasonable amount of aesthetic appeal, then this is a good deck. If you're looking for drop-dead gorgeous cards with high-quality illustrations, look to a less amateurish publisher such as Lo Scarabeo.