53/100 - The Magician
One of my favorite versions of The Magician tarot card is the one painted by Salvador Dalí. On one level it is not surprising he depicted himself as the magician given his colossal ego and knack for showmanship. But I like the interpretation of the magician as a sort of conduit between abstraction and the material world. The Magician is commonly depicted in tarot cards with one hand pointing up (the world above) and the other pointing down (earth), the magician being the lightning rod connecting these different aspects of reality.
If you look closely at Dalí's card he's pointing up and down with his index fingers though in a more restrained posture:
What I like about this version is that it establishes a connection between the artist and the magician, so the job of the artist is to turn abstraction into tangible reality, ideas into works of art, concepts into experiences. Yet as noble as that sounds the tools at the disposal of both the artist and the magician are those of trickery and deception. We deal in games and illusion.
The magician's table often has the symbols for the 4 elements, or suits of cards, usually cups, coins, clubs and swords. These respectively represent water, earth, fire and air. I like the simpler approach taken by tarot scholar Rachel Pollack on her Shining Tribe deck, she uses rivers, stones, trees and birds, and that explains the branch, feather, stone and water droplets I drew on this version. I also like the tales of shamans becoming animals and the tradition of animal masks, so I drew an elaborate headpiece that combines a bat, a wolf, a fish and a bird.
This wooden card is 3.75" by 3.75. Available here(sold).