Celestial Stick People

The record

Tarot's impossibly ambitious goal is to limn the entirety of the human experience in 78 pieces of paper that can be held in the palm of one hand. Some decks approach this task with overwrought iconography. The High Priestess in the Rider-Waite-Smith deck, for example, is overloaded with symbols from several traditions. She wears the horns and sun disc of ancient Egypt's Hathor, or perhaps her crown is a waxing, full, and waning moon. She sits between columns from Solomon's Temple. The moon is beneath her feet, a reference to the book of Revelation. There are pomegranates, perhaps suggesting ripe wombs, perhaps the 613 mitzvot, or Jewish commandments. Meanings, here, are heavy and complicated. Minimalist decks are a stylistic backlash against busyness, the symbols upon symbols that clutter the visual field and exhaust attempts at interpretation. The black-and-white Rotin tarot is radically minimalist; its Hanged Man is nothing but a sketch of a noose. Minimalism helps to universalize Tarot. Tarot reflects its origins in medieval Europe. Its human figures are Caucasian. I like the International Icon Tarot deck for that reason – its humans are orange, purple, and green. It really is i

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