This tarotcast is an experiment with my casting for the week and art.  Usually I pull cards and then cast about for the art to go with the general energies of that week.  This week I am going in the opposite direction and letting the art take the lead.  I think the arts were born under the sign of Gemini.  Gemini is the first sign in which we work on how and why we communicate with the world.  Art is a place where we try to create, experiment and communicate with something outside ourselves to convey what is going on inside ourselves.

So this tarotcast I’m going to let the art solely express your goals, challenges, energies that surround you.  I will add a tidbit about the painting that I find relevant to the piece or energy of your cast.  This is exercise in mindfulness, of truly experiencing a piece of art. I challenge you to dive deep into each piece and ask how does this makes me feel and see what thoughts it brings to the surface.  Like the sign of the Gemini where the twins peer at each other, looking for similarities and differences, so does the exercise of experiencing art.  The artist is the twin to the piece and then the piece becomes the twin to the viewer.  Art challenges us to look in to it and truly see ourselves – our common humanity through time and space.

P.S. I have also put links for each piece if you want to dive deeper into the art or artist. Please share.

Aries- Ginervra de’ Benci by Leonardo da Vinci 1475

On the back side of this portrait he painted VIRTVTEM FORMA DECORAT (“beauty adorns virtue”)

Taurus–  Portrait of Paolo Morgia by Fede Galizia, 1595

Fede was well-known as a portrait painter by the age of twelve. She was meticulous in her attention to detail look at the reflection of the glasses in his hand, they reflect a window not seen.

*Gemini – Portrait d’une negresse by Marie-Guillemine Benoist 1800

Six years previously slavery was abolished in France, though short-lived, so this image became the symbol for woman’s emancipation and black people’s right.

Cancer – Early Moonrise, Florida by George Inness 1893

Inness was known for interpreting rather than recording natures views, moving away from the Hudson River School artists’ transcriptions of nature.   According to Inness “you can suggest reality…you cannot paint reality.”

Leo – Stay High 149 aka Wayne Roberts 197?

He was a superstar in the underground up and coming graffiti scene of the 1970’s.  This piece is a parody on the British television show The Saint.

Virgo – Dulle Griet by Pieter Bruegal the Elder, 1565

Dulle Griet also known as Mad Meg, in Flemish folklore who leads an army of woman to pillage Hell.  Her mission refers to the proverb “She could plunder in front of hell and return unscathed.”

Libra – Le Pont del Europe by Gustave Caillebotte, 1881

The three prominent characters in this portrait are theorized as a  representation of the three classes of Parisians who normally not met in society but do on this bridge.

*Scorpio – Carousel in Santa Monica by David Michael Hinnebusch 2006

In 2006, a friend of the artist, who didn’t like Hinnebusch’s art on found materials, took him shopping at the art store. He bought $2,000 US worth of Golden Acrylics, brushes and 10 large canvases and this is one of the painting that came out of that excursion.

Sagittarius – Personnages aux Chevaux, Characters with Horses, by Marcelle Cahn  1935

Was one of the few female artist in 1930’s associated with the movement Abstraction-Creation, which was a counteract to the Surrealist movement.

Capricorn – Closed Gallery by Robert Barry 1969

Closed Gallery consisted of three invitations to gallery shows in Amsterdam, Turin, and Los Angeles printed on simple white cards. They informed the recipients that during the exhibition, the gallery would be closed. “It’s the purest form of this notion of what the physicality of art is and what art is really all about. One doesn’t need to even have the gallery space”, said David Platzker, who sent out numerous announcement cards worldwide, each saying simply “During the exhibition the gallery will be closed”.

 

Aquarius – La Rue du Soleil,  Port Vendres by Charles Rennie Mackintosh, 1926

Charles started his career as an architect and was influential in the Art Nouveau and Secessionism.  He abandoned it later and focused solely on painting watercolors later in life.  Though like the reflection of the buildings in the water you can still see buildings are still in his mind.

Pisces – Summon Up by Frederick Hammersley, 1958

He wrote that “hard-edge is often very hard to take, coming to the cold or even to the practiced eyed.”

May light be on you, around you, and within you,

Nina