Leonardo Da Vinci Tarot – Atanassov Ghiuselev

Leonardo Da Vinci Tarot – Atanas Atanassov & Iassen Ghiuselev 

78-card deck & guidebook

The creation of a new Tarot deck is always a challenge. The artists who put themselves to this test know this all too well, having had to maintain coherency of style, line, and color for 78 images. But before creating the images, a project, which is simultaneously traditional as well as innovative, is necessary because the Arcana must always be recognizable. The problem becomes greater when an artist of the calibre of Leonardo da Vinci is used as a point of reference; one risks falling into plagiarism or banalization. But the Leonardo Tarot has overcome the challenge. The Major Arcana, created in 1992 by lassen Ghiuselev following my iconographic indications, may be inserted among the ‘Leonardesque’ masterpieces. In fact, as the well-known art historian Marco Bussagli wrote, ‘the Bulgarian painter has completely succeeded in restoring the charm of Leonardesque chiaroscuro using an impeccable technique’.

Today, ten years later, the deck is offered in a complete version thanks to another Bulgarian artist, Atanas Atanassov, who took steps to create the 56 Minor Arcana. When observing this new series, one remains spellbound by the seriousness with which the Eastern European schools prepare new generations of artists, making them capable of reinterpreting the Art (let’s emphasize the uppercase A) with the ‘lightness’ of those who have perfectly acquired both the aesthetic precepts as well as the most refined techniques. This is why it seems to me that the entire deck should be attributed the judgment expressed in turn by Bussagli: ‘The Leonardo Tarot is worthy of admiration. It is not simply an academic exercise but something more, almost as if the works by the genius Vinci are able to reveal here their most intimate nature, that of the Arcana of the intellect and the spirit’.