Keep your eyes peeled to the screen! While I am convinced the sheer beauty of this deck has been enough to grasp your attention, I must say I am very excited myself about it, as I have been following it for a couple of years - and it's finally a reality. The True Black Tarot by designer and illustrator Arthur Wang is perfectly defined by this sentence: "it is only in darkness that we see the stars".
This is quite certainly the blackest deck I own, and one with the most well-rounded, consistent design of them all. It was conceived as a "timeless tarot [...] to embody an exacting perfection". The reasoning behind this statement is here: "Illustrated in a style that refuses to be placed in any specific era or time, each card emerges from the darkness a story in itself, embodied in a painting that is both ancient and contemporary. Core to the concept of TrueBlack is the interconnectedness of all, embodied in the stars and skies shared by humanity through all lands and epochs. Each box, booklet, and card back is adorned with maps of the heavens".
But reducing these 79 cards to blackness would be a disservice. There is an intense light play in each of these. In a way, light is brought to life precisely because of the stark, clever contrast with the black background. There's so much expressiveness contained in each illustration, in each posture, gesture and symbolism included in them. It quite literally shines sometimes, as the spot gloss that is featured on the cards catches the light and centres the vision on a very particular detail that may be hidden otherwise. Although the minors do not feature this spot varnishing, the light play is eye catching on its own and draws you in. The majors and court cards are character-centred, and most of them feel like statues that have been brought to life. In the minors we can find natural elements (mostly plants and animals), a few man-made elements (including architectural pieces), elemental forces and the suit symbols.
The overall design is completed by the hand-painted black edges, the high quality production (which even makes it splash resistant), thick cardstock and a velvety soft, scratch-resistant rose petal finish. Every card back features a black foil starmap, which is also present in the matching-designed magnetic flip top box (oh so sturdy!). It can also be found in the 112 page guidebook, which features a brief introduction and juicy information on each card. This includes: keywords, meanings and descriptions of the cards, and a section of "additional artwork" when that's present.
The True Black Tarot is unlike any other deck you have seen. It is rich in its blackness and in its light play, but also in its deep artwork, alive characters and extremely well-cared-for details. It's no surprise that it has a strong energy, but it is a still one - it quietly lays in front of you a message which you have to work on until it becomes your own. Arthur Wang has succeeded in creating a timeless deck that doesn't only look breath-taking, but that also gives so much to the reader to work with every time. If you want to read more details or check more images, head over to the True Black site!
