Style combination · Contrasts

Imagerie d'Épinal × Tarot de Marseille Woodcut Cards

Both stencil-colour a black woodcut key in a few drifting colours, but the Épinal sheet tells a story in grids of captioned cases and marches rows of soldiers, while the tarot card isolates one emblematic subject under a numeral and a title; choose tarot for a single symbol, Épinal for a sequence.

From the research on Tarot de Marseille Woodcut Cards

Mix them and make something Imagerie d'Épinal Tarot de Marseille Woodcut Cards

A sample layout drawn from the recipe: shapes from Imagerie d'Épinal, their arrangement from Tarot de Marseille Woodcut Cards, the finish from Imagerie d'Épinal. Not a real work, and not an image of either style.

What each style brings

Each part of the design comes from the style with the stronger say in it, and each style gives at least two.

Imagerie d'Épinal & European Bilderbogen Tarot de Marseille Woodcut Cards

Type from Tarot de Marseille Woodcut Cards: All caps
Hand-lettering
Colour from Imagerie d'Épinal: Flat fields
Primary triad
Form from Imagerie d'Épinal: Stylised figuration
Naturalistic depiction

Tarot de Marseille Woodcut Cards avoids naturalistic depiction: this is where the two pull against each other, which is the point of the contrast.
Composition from Tarot de Marseille Woodcut Cards: Framed panels
Single focal point
Surface from Imagerie d'Épinal: Misregistration & overprint
Carved line

The type

Open fonts standing in for each style’s own type, which is often hand-drawn or commercial.

Display · Tarot de Marseille Woodcut Cards

Ours

Cinzel, standing in for Roman capitals cut into the woodblock with the picture, in a band at the foot of each trump and court card, often with interpuncts and the copyists' spellings ('LE CHARIOR' and 'LA PANCES' on Dodal's cards, 'LE BATELEVR' with V for U)

Text · Imagerie d'Épinal

Cheap single-sheet popular prints sold by pedlars across 19th-century Europe, led by the Pellerin imagerie at Épinal and the Neuruppin Bilderbogen. A black woodcut, and later a lithograph, was coloured by hand through stencils in a few flat colours that drift past the outlines: Napoleonic battles, saints, rows of soldiers to cut out, and stories told in grids of equal captioned cases, under a title in roman capitals, or Fraktur in Germany.

Bodoni Moda; Imagerie d'Épinal used Bold modern-face (Didone) roman capitals for the centred title, sometimes shaded or outlined and Small roman text in a justified block beneath the picture, with the imprint ('De la fabrique de Pellerin, imprimeur-libraire, à Épinal') in capitals and 'Propriété de l'Éditeur. Déposé.' in italic

The colours

The ground and leading colours come from Imagerie d'Épinal, with a counter-accent from Tarot de Marseille Woodcut Cards. The ink reads on the ground at 4.5:1 or more.

Imagerie d'Épinal & European Bilderbogen Tarot de Marseille Woodcut Cards

#efe6cc ground · 36%
#1c1a17 ink · 14%
#e4bb3a accent · 18%
#b8283a accent · 14%
#2f56a0 accent · 10%
#3f8a5c accent · 8%

As CSS

:root {
  --ground: #efe6cc;
  --ink: #1c1a17;
  --accent-1: #e4bb3a;
  --accent-2: #b8283a;
  --accent-3: #2f56a0;
  --accent-4: #3f8a5c;
  --font-display: "Cinzel", serif;
  --font-text: "Bodoni Moda", serif;
}

Use it with care

Imagerie d'Épinal & European Bilderbogen: Many sheets carry nationalist, militarist and colonial messages, from the Napoleonic legend to colonial campaigns such as the Tonkin war, and some show colonised peoples as 'savages' (the Kühn Robinson sheet captions 'die Wilden' slaughtering captives at a feast), so do not reproduce these figures as period charm; the Imagerie d'Épinal still trades under its name, so draw new sheets rather than copying its marks.

Tarot de Marseille Woodcut Cards: Trace decks cut before 1800 (Noblet, Dodal and Conver in the BnF; Dodal cards and early 19th-century Conver printings at the Met) rather than recent redrawings such as Grimaud's 1930 'Ancien Tarot de Marseille' or the 1998 Camoin–Jodorowsky restoration, which are modern works; and do not present the occultists' story of an Egyptian origin, launched by Court de Gébelin in 1781, as history: the pattern descends from Milanese tarot and was made for the card game of tarot, which French and Swiss players used it for until the early 20th century.

The two styles

A vintage-style illustrated French poster headed “PLANTONS DEMAIN” contains twelve bordered panels showing a boy planting and watering a tree, watching it grow, resting and reading beneath it, and tending it through autumn and winter. The final panel shows an adult and child planting a sapling together, with village buildings and countryside repeated in the backgrounds.

1796–1939 · Western Europe, Central Europe Imagerie d'Épinal & European Bilderbogen Cheap single-sheet popular prints sold by pedlars across 19th-century Europe, led by the Pellerin imagerie at Épinal and the Neuruppin Bilderbogen. A black woodcut, and later a lithograph, was coloured by hand through stencils in a few flat colours that drift past the outlines: Napoleonic battles, saints, rows of soldiers to cut out, and stories told in grids of equal captioned cases, under a title in roman capitals, or Fraktur in Germany.

A crowned, robed figure holds a star-topped staff and rests one hand on a blue orb bearing a yellow star. Flowers flank the figure within a distressed black border, with “GUIDANCE” printed below.

1639–present · Western Europe, Southern Europe, Central Europe Tarot de Marseille Woodcut Cards The standard pattern of French tarot cards, descended from Milanese tarot and recut by card-makers in Paris, Lyon, Avignon, Dijon and Marseille from the 17th century. Each of the 78 cards holds one emblematic subject, a stiff figure or small frozen group, or a set of suit signs, inside a ruled frame, cut in wood with thick contours and sparse hatching and stencil-coloured in a few flat colours, chiefly red, yellow, blue, green and flesh (with violet in the 17th century); trumps add a roman numeral above and a carved title below. Occultists read it as a book of symbols from 1781.

More combinations

With Imagerie d'Épinal

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