Old Style

The record

There is something about the tarot that fuels the imaginations of artists. The variety of decks is truly staggering – from ancient times to the distant future, from the mundane to the fantastic – there is a tarot deck for every taste and occasion. Many of the most popular decks often have an idealised, romanticised view of whatever period of history they are portraying. Tarot rarely portrays grim reality; somehow even at our worst, and in the grimmest of tarot images we come off as old-fashioned, quaint, and naive. In this vein of glorious romanticism is the Old Style Tarot by Alexander Ray. The Old Style Tarot obliquely references the Rider Waite Smith imagery and symbolism while maintaining a flavour of Victorian era book illustrations and greeting cards. This is a 79 card fully illustrated tarot deck – it has 22 Major Arcana and 56 Minor Arcana cards, plus a special Blank Card. The Major Arcana maintains all the traditional names and Rider-Waite Tarot ordering: Strength is card VIII and Justice is card XI. The Minor Arcana is divided into 4 suits of 14 cards each: Wands, Cups, Swords, and Pentacles. Each suit has 10 number cards and 4 Court cards – Page, Knight, Queen, and King.

Source & full review →