Mustard Gas and Roses

While differing greatly from traditional Tarocchi or tarot cards, this set earned its misleading name because of a few, unimportant similarities. Never a game, scholars generally agree that this set was an educational tool, used to visually describe a fifteenth-century philosophical model of the universe. It was believed that the universe was a ladder-like structure that began with the beggar and rose through the ranks of man, the muses, the liberal arts, the virtues, and the planets, until it finally reached the pinnacle, the dwelling place of God. Reflecting this order, these fifty engravings were divided into five groups of ten: the Conditions of Man; Apollo and the Muses; the Liberal Arts (with three added disciplines–Poetry, Philosophy, and Theology); the Virtues (with three personifications of cosmic principles called "genii"); and the Firmaments of the Universe.

This Friday the 13th, we share a haunting etching from 1900: Soren Lünd's "The Old Horse." A spectral figure of Death rides in stark detail, reminding us of art’s ability to capture the mysteries of life and beyond.

1895 colour lithograph of Isolde drinking the love potion which, according to the tales of King Arthur, would bind her to the knight Tristan.

From a drawing by Aubrey Beardsley who was born #onthisday in 1872.

James Sant (British, 1820-1916)