Tarot: Origins & Afterlives - Warburg Institute

The Warburg Institute

This was a lucky find and I have to give the credit here to the IanVisits website. I get weekly notices of exhibitions and events as well as posts about places he has visited. He knows what is going on in London, and this one interested me. It was good to get out last week and forget about the awful dull, cold weather that has been drilling into me.

I'd never been to the Warburg Institute and had to look it up. It's in what I call 'University land'. UCL and Birkbeck are there, so the road was heaving with students. The institute is off Gower Street and I chose Goodge Street tube on Tottenham Court Road as my exit point because I decided it was nearer and I didn't have to change anywhere.

University Land

The exhibition isn't huge, but very well displayed. Most people will know of Tarot cards, mainly consisting of 78 cards (Major and Minor Arcana). Some of the cards you may be familiar with most include The Tower, The Lovers, Death and the Devil. The cards can look rather daunting, but it is in the reading that the meanings come alive. The cards can have various spreads, such as the Horseshoe and the Celtic Cross and the cards have different meanings depending on how they are placed - upright or upside down.

Originally, the cards were adapted from ordinary playing cards. The founder of the institute, Aby Warburg, was among the first modern scholars to take a serious look at the evolution of Tarot and the institute holds some of the oldest surviving cards from the 15th century, which are on display here.

Some of the most popular decks are featured here, including the Rider=Waite-Smith designed by Pamela Colman Smith and the Thoth Tarot designed Aleister Crowley. On display are also updated versions of the Tarot, very colourful paintings with meanings printed on them.