Stylogeny combining Nianhua × Tarot de Marseille Woodcut Cards

Try

Style combination · Pairs well

Nianhua × Tarot de Marseille Woodcut Cards

Door gods and many tarot trumps are single frontal figures cut in wood and brightly coloured by hand; set them side by side for a cross-cultural series of guardian or allegorical figures.

From the research on Tarot de Marseille Woodcut Cards

Mix them and make something Nianhua Tarot de Marseille Woodcut Cards

FIESTANianhua × Tarot de1100 · 1639
A sample layout drawn from the recipe: shapes from Nianhua, their arrangement from Nianhua, the finish from Tarot de Marseille Woodcut Cards. Not a real work, and not an image of either style.

01

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.

Nianhua & Chinese Folk Print Tarot de Marseille Woodcut Cards

Type from Tarot de Marseille Woodcut Cards
Colour from Nianhua
Form from Nianhua
Composition from Nianhua

Tarot de Marseille Woodcut Cards avoids horror vacui: this is where the two pull against each other.

Surface from Tarot de Marseille Woodcut Cards

02

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

Fiesta

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 · Nianhua

Woodblock pictures bought each New Year and pasted on doors, walls and kitchen shrines to invite luck and ward off harm: paired door gods, plump babies with carp, the Kitchen God, opera scenes and auspicious rebuses. A black keyline block is overprinted or hand-coloured in saturated red, green, yellow and pink, and compositions are dense, frontal and often mirrored in pairs.

Shippori Mincho; Nianhua used Kaishu and Lishu (clerical script) for auspicious couplets

03

The colours

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

Nianhua & Chinese Folk Print Tarot de Marseille Woodcut Cards

  • #f1e6cf ground · 36%
  • #1a1a1a ink · 14%
  • #f2c230 accent · 18%
  • #c8252c accent · 14%
  • #e5739a accent · 10%
  • #2f8a4e accent · 8%

As CSS

:root {
  --ground: #f1e6cf;
  --ink: #1a1a1a;
  --accent-1: #f2c230;
  --accent-2: #c8252c;
  --accent-3: #e5739a;
  --accent-4: #2f8a4e;
  --font-display: "Cinzel", serif;
  --font-text: "Shippori Mincho", serif;
}

Use it with care

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.

04

The two styles

A densely decorated, symmetrical Chinese folk-style print shows two children holding coins above paired carp and guardian lions, surrounded by pink flowers, green foliage, red lanterns and long-necked birds. A yellow panel with black Chinese lettering sits beneath a rising sun at the top. c. 1100–present · East Asia Nianhua & Chinese Folk Print Woodblock pictures bought each New Year and pasted on doors, walls and kitchen shrines to invite luck and ward off harm: paired door gods, plump babies with carp, the Kitchen God, opera scenes and auspicious rebuses. A black keyline block is overprinted or hand-coloured in saturated red, green, yellow and pink, and compositions are dense, frontal and often mirrored in pairs. 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.

05

More combinations

With Nianhua

All 15 combinations with Nianhua

With Tarot de Marseille Woodcut Cards

Every style combination