Laetitia Barbier

“This deck teaches us to look beyond the surface, to engage with a gaze of awe, admiration, and reverence.” —Laetitia Barbier, author of Tarot and Divination Cards: A Visual Archive Tarot Emblemata is a magical and mystical tarot deck based on the 1551 book of emblems by Claude Paradin. Renaissance emblems are intimate illustrations with accompanying mottos that allegorically and symbolically express sentiments, concepts, societal concerns, and parables. These Renaissance emblems are a didactic genre of interpretive art and, within them, author and creator Nitasia Roland has discovered that their enigmatic imagery and “mottos” correspond dynamically and align perfectly with the seventy cards of the Major and Minor Arcana of the tarot. Among the many ancient and iconic images this deck portrays—plumes, helmets, swords, gemstone rings, coins, wands, clouds, wreaths, flowers, animals, and trees—Roland sees the evolution of tarot’s wands, swords, cups, and coins, as well as evocative glimmers of the Major Arcana archetypes. Both secular and religious, Renaissance emblems were meant to crystallize virtue or vice and cover every sphere of early modern knowledge: ethics, natural philosophy, politics, science, religion, love, war, and everyday life, very much in the same way that modern tarot imagery provides insight and clarity today. The Tarot Emblemata deck will help readers expand on their path of embodiment, spiritual gnosis, inspired destiny, and empowerment. The accompanying guidebook presents tarot interpretations and elucidations on the symbolism of the emblems. Tarot Emblemata features a ribbon lift and gilded cards. It is an accessible deck for beginners and those familiar with the Rider-Waite-Smith system, while more experienced readers will enjoy a new and refreshing perspective.

Used for self-exploration or divination, Tarot has, for more than a 500 years, been the most popular and accessible of all esoteric tools, looming large in today’s mainstream culture. Why? Because the cards are inexpensive and easy to carry—a perfect traveling companion and, therefore, an invitation to a journey inward and out. Humans are drawn to playing games and feel driven to find meaning in the chaos of paradoxical signs. The vivid iconography of the “arcanas” speak to us like no other language, moving us to the core, weaving through each cards a universal story, a metaphorical pathway of transformation. This 400 page book presents for the first time a close look at 500 years of figurative card decks created or used for fortune telling, divinations, and oracle purposes and will explore, one card at the time, their iconographic roots at the cross-roads of the medieval imaginarium, Western esoteric wisdom, folklore, and also contemporary art and pop culture. With hundreds of images drawn from more than 100 decks, rarely published and often forgotten in library archives, it will offer the first visual history of tarot.

A fascinating panorama of the faces of Jesus today Jesus Now presents, for the first time, a showcase of the figure of Christ in contemporary art, graphic design, advertising, and pop culture. Featuring the work of more than 80 artists from around the world, including Cindy Sherman, David LaChapelle, Kehinde Wiley, Pierre et Gilles, Nina Chanel, Mark Ryden, and Alex Grey, Jesus Now! shows how the Christ figure continues to inspire the artists of today. In trendy galleries, on the walls of major cities, as a superhero or manga character, in Hollywood blockbusters or in satirical TV cartoons, Jesus is not only a guide for believers but also has become, as this book reveals, an icon of modern pop culture. This art anthology also showcases how today's artists have developed new iconographies that break with the image of the White Messiah to favor depicting Jesus in a more historically accurate way or in ways more reflective of themselves: Black Jesus, Maori Jesus, Native American Jesus.