🚪 Arrived at last - Final Destination in the Temple of the Secrets?
Finally the cycle is complete. During the long journey of the fool/hero with lots of ups and downs we learned about all aspects of life. A soul materializing in this world, a person growing up and learning everything necessary to start the own life, gathering experiences and mastering difficulties and ones own personality...
And now we have reached the preliminary end of our journey.
This last picture shows a so-called mandala. A mandala is a circular picture and in many cultures the mandala is a symbol for the world. Here our human being has now found and taken his/her place in the world.
I chose all three basic colors, as one can pretty much create all other colors from them by mixing. The picture represents a mature person with great inner richness. Therefore I chose to build the mandala from golden (yellow) ankh signs, the symbol of life of the ancient Egyptians, who often combined it with lapis lazuli (blue) and rubies (red).
By reaching this last card "XXI - The World" we completed a cycle of life. If that is really the final destination depends on your own beliefs...
All the cards are part of a major artwork I created throughout the 90s in a former chapel and I called that space the Temple of the Secrets.
click ☝️🔎
As I have told you already last time, the whole work consists of 66 pieces of glass. They are between 3 and 6 feet high, and under the actual Tarot cards are corresponding pictures with the story of how the cards and the wisdom encoded in them made their way to us today. "How the cards came from Egypt to Bavaria", to be precise.
The story ends with a picture rather similar to the one at the beginning...
...where we saw the emergence of the world after the imagination of the ancient Egyptians.
The endpoint is the same figure, but instead of the primal egg, she is holding the shen ring, the ancient Egyptian symbol for eternal protection.
Unfortunately I only have a weak photo of it, as that is one of the unfinished pieces. But just to give you an idea:
To find out your Personal TAROT Card, just add day, month and year of your date of Birth:
dd + mm + jjjj = xxxx.
Now add the four digits of the resulting number:
x + x + x + x = nn
If the resulting number is greater than 22 please add n + n again.
Any result equal to or smaller than 22 is your personal number with 22 representing 0
If you are interested in the aspects of divination, please make sure to
visit @tarotbyfergus, @zero-infinity and @intuitivejakob.
@anibas also created a beautiful Tarot deck and you can order individual cards/pictures from her website
On a related theme, @mira13 is your expert on numerology
A big thank you also to @sukhasanasister for the valuable contributions to my tarot posts in the past!!
The Temple of the Secrets total size of artwork is 15ft by 45ft, unfinished
It was part of the museum I ran for twenty years.
If you'd like to take a look at previous cards, you can use the following links:
I enjoy reading your comments!
❤
If you like my work, of course I appreciate your upvotes and resteems
All photos/scans by me of my own artwork done in my special technique as introduced in What is Hinterglas?
What an amazing series. I truly love this series and I love series work and art that continues on in a vein. It is like reading your favourite novel without uttering a word.
I love your use of primary colours as part of the narrative and your forms have such a roundness (not really the right word) but there is just a fullness to your objects that seem enticing like ripe fruit.
Nipple warning makes me laugh. Isn't it funny that if you said they were male nipples it would be ok? What odd creatures humans are.
Another wonderful piece. I'd share this one too, but I just shared your other one and I don't want to seem a crazy fan ;)
You are the best story teller, in words and in pictures. Your Singularity series is absolutely impressive and it always makes me feel small when I visit your blog.
Haha.. well, the warning was a bit cynical, but then again, I do want to respect those who have a problem with it. Just thought it isn't enough for a nsfw tag.
As always, a big thank you for your wonderful comment and the resteem of the other one!
I'm impressed by the complexity of your approach to Tarot. Exactly how it deserves. I like your combination of depth and humour when presenting individual cards. It is a great idea to present the world with a mandala and a feminine character relaxed in her accomplishment. Majesctic blue with red and golden accents is a perfect combination for the final one. I am curious about the unfinished one. Resteemed
Thank you very much. As you know by now, humor is an important part of my art. Well our whole life actually :-) So of course it found its way into my tarot cards as well.
That unfinished piece will stay like this for a while. All the pictures are in storage at the moment and I have no definite plans to work on them in the near future..
Oh I must guess which is my Tarot card. I confess I do not know much about it though several of my own friends also fellow artists and illustrators have done their own decks and I always enjoy their interpretations.
Love the vivid colours
The female nipple warning made me giggle, we could think we know how to distinguish nude as art. I still refuse to dress most of my fairies and sprites lol.
I just stumbled by chance but glad I did, curious about the technique post.
I added the formula, as one way to find out your card. There are other approaches, some people simply choose one. Interestingly enough I have seen many cases, where the one "randomly" picked, was the same one later calculated.
Glad you found your way here. You have a very interesting blog too!
Hello @reinhard-schmid, thank you for sharing this creative work! We just stopped by to say that you've been upvoted by the @creativecrypto magazine. The Creative Crypto is all about art on the blockchain and learning from creatives like you. Looking forward to crossing paths again soon. Steem on!
OMG, what an honor! Thank you so very much :-)
I spoke too soon in my last comment on another of your posts. Now I see these tarot cards. absolutely stunning.
Well, that happened to me too in the past. Funny how you "felt" my connection to tarot ahead of time :-)
As always, technically great and I dig your style. What I'm really loving here is the amount of thought you put into the symbology, right down to why you chose to focus on primary colors. I know it wasn't intentional, but when shrunk down, the circle of ankhs also strongly reminded me of DNA, which given the subject of this card is interesting.
Of course with a project like that, you have to put a lot of thought and planing into it. I also did a lot of things based on my intuition, for some of which I found explanations long after they happened.
Thank you for the feature!
My card is the Moon. (been howling at it ever since I can remember).
About basic colors: yes, of course - my palette is limited to those. Strange how some seem to think they need 144 color set in order to paint. I do save the colors I mixed in those small film canisters that came with analog film.
upvoted, resteemed and shared: https://twitter.com/visionaryartcom/status/1000976904730632192
I always liked the idea of starting with the basic colors although I admit, I have a few more by now. Particularly with oils, where transparency of pigments comes into play, having a nice selection can be helpful. Interestingly enough, it has been found out, that using magenta and cyan will lead to better results not only in printing, but also traditional painting...
of course - sticking to basic I learned as a offset printer working in Sweden. Amazing what you can get with just 3 colors, black and the white of the paper. I printed centerfolds - we usually spent a good day setting up the press, adjusting colors. Best part was that the photographers came in with the models to check the proofs, lol .... magenta and cyan are the purest colors.
But yes, I do have a few more in my arsenal now also, but my mainstay are the colors I already mixed and saved in those film canisters. Though acrylics dry out quick, the saved ones stay soft and pliable surprisingly long. A few of them I had for a couple of years.
I'm with the sun and therefore can confirm the Bumpy Ride...
Haha.. its bumpy for all of us, but when the sun is your card, you should have a good way of dealing with it!
Hadn't seen this one before. Sucked into the mandala! Somehow both scary and erotic.
First time I published this here. "Sucked into the mandala" sounds wild... now that you mentioned that, I see how one could get this idea. But then again, that reflects a Taoist idea... if we compare ourselves to water, our existence here is like a drop. When we "die", the drop falls into the ocean (and looses its individuality)
Just a small part of the great pattern! Love the Shen ring too, Its a fabulous drawing.
Hi Reinhard :)
I really liked the color combination of this card :)
Thank you. It kind if was the only option :-)