Black is Art Tarot by noweyesee (Vieux Monde Press) is a unique deck in many ways:
- features historic portraits of Black people;
- incorporates unusual pip configurations with excerpted objects from paintings;
- blends historic time periods and art styles across 400 years of history.
Portraiture decks and I have not always gotten along, and with the weird pips, I wrote this deck off at first as something I couldn’t read with.
But after watching Mims’ video a second time, I realized this deck might satisfy some things on my wishlist: it features only Black folks, and it’s historic (pre-1900) paintings. I’ve been looking for decks with each of these aspects, but didn’t expect to find one deck that ticked both boxes…. sold!
The artist, who goes by noweyesee, or That Witch Lou, is a Black Brazilian person who has several other decks, including Soft as Clouds Pastel Tarot, also published by Vieux Monde Press. Soft as Clouds features vector-image art in a minimalist arrangement, very different from Black Is Art and potentially more approachable.
Lou also has a number of downloadable publications available on their ko-fi page, including A Guide to Tarot: Beginner’s Guide to Understanding the Cards.
A (little) more information about the collator of this deck is available on their Tumblr page.
What is the Black is Art Tarot?
As mentioned, this deck features historic portraits of Black people. But it’s interesting to consider gaze here. We have Black people, painted by white Europeans, and then the portraits are curated by a Black Brazilian person, hundreds of years later. What does this do to our understanding or interpretation of the cards?
Most of the portraits are formal oil portraits or character studies, and a few are in a storybook illustration style. I am no expert on art styles or art history, but I looked up the time periods on Wikipedia to familiarize myself.
There is one painting from the 14th century: Black Madonna of Czestochowa at the Jasna Góra Monastery in Poland, which would be late medieval (?). The other images range from the 1480’s to 1867, so that’s about a 380 year time span. The art styles range from Renaissance, Baroque, Rococo, Neoclassical, to Romanticism, and the artists are French, Italian, Spanish, and Dutch. These colonial powers, particularly the Netherlands in the 17th and 18th centuries, did enslave people around the world, and some of the models used in paintings at the time were enslaved. Other models are free persons working as household servants, and a few are dignitaries or emissaries from African countries.
The Athena Art Foundation on YouTube has made several series on Black artist models in various time periods, and several of the portraits featured in their videos are included in this tarot deck. There were very few Black or other persons from the global majority working as portrait painters at the time in these countries. To find portraits of Black or melanated people by melanated people is very rare. I learned of one through a video on the Athena Art channel: Juan de Pareja, who was painted by Diego Velázquez, a famous Spanish painter, while enslaved to his household; de Pareja worked in Velázquez’s studio, later became free, and then became a painter himself.
The Met has an online exhibition about de Pareja, and his time with Velázquez, but this type of story is very unusual. So the curator of this deck, Lou, is working with what’s available: portraits modeled by enslaved people, or household servants, a few illustrations of myths or fables, as well as portraits of visiting dignitaries and ambassadors from other countries. It’s a really interesting mix of portrayals. I do wonder about some of the images: Are they caricatures? Are they offensive? What was the intention behind the way that these people were portrayed in the paintings? The motivation seems to vary by artist.
Notes on the production:
- Card stock is thin, sturdy, flexible, easy to shuffle
- Choice of smooth card stock rather than linen doesn’t obscure details in the images.
- The art is mostly high resolution, but a few images appear grainy or so dark it’s hard to see the person’s features.
Notes on the booklet:
- Each artist and painting is identified.
- I found an error: King of Pentacles misattributed as “Portrait of King James II” but is in fact “Portrait of a Mulatto in Armor”.
- There is a discrepancy in suit names between the booklet and the cards: Spades vs. Swords. I would have preferred Staves for Wands and Coins for Pentacles based on the images of the implements, a minor gripe.
- The entries for the majors include a short description from the curator of why each image is designated for its particular card. You’re on your own with the court cards.
I love that this deck exists, and I’ve had a fun time doing some personal readings with it. The pips are a little disorienting at first, but I’ve found my eye is getting used to them with practice. I’m not sure this deck will have wide universal appeal, based on its historic style and pips. But if you’re into Medieval/Renaissance/Neoclassical portraiture and looking for something different, this deck delivers!
If you are more knowledgable about art history generally or Black art history specifically, and have resources to recommend, please leave a comment!
P.S. In the video I also mentioned my favorite tarot bag/wallet maker, Moonlit Fae.
