Over the weekend, I had the opportunity to visit New York City and explore Tarot! Renaissance Symbols, Modern Visions at The Morgan Library and Museum. Rather than focusing on tarot as a tool for fortune-telling, the exhibition examines its evolution as an artistic and symbolic language spanning centuries. The exhibition traced Tarot’s journey from its beginning as a Renaissance card game to its influence on 20th and 21st century artists.
Visitors are introduced to Tarot in forms such as the classic playing cards, richly embroidered textiles, illuminated manuscripts, paintings, artist designed Tarot decks, and rare books. These works demonstrated how Tarot has inspired generations of artists, writers, and philosophers continually adapting to different cultures and historical moments.
The exhibition highlights the museum’s Visconti-Sforza Tarot, among the earliest surviving and most complete Renaissance tarot decks. Commissioned in fifteenth-century Italy, these hand painted cards present craftsmanship in a way that seems royal from the gold lined cards and intricate details. The earliest art of tarot cards functioned as deeply symbolic works of art long before it became associated with divination.
Rather than presenting a complete history of Tarot, the exhibition explores several key periods in which artists rediscovered its symbolic power. During the Renaissance, Tarot imagery reflected moral and philosophical ideas. In the late nineteenth century, members of the British occult revival connected the cards with astrology, alchemy, Kabbalah, and Egyptian symbolism. Following World War, surrealist artists embraced Tarot as a way to explore dreams, intuition, and subconscious. More contemporary artists have continued to reinterpret Tarot, using its familiar imagery to express personal, political, and spiritual ideas.
One of the most fascinating aspects of the exhibition is that it treats Tarot not as a fixed object, but as a living artistic tradition. Different artists returned to the same cards, such as The Tower, the Moon, Justice, or the Fool, and reinvented them to reflect the concerns of their own era. Whether through Aleister Crowley and Lady Freida Harris’s richly layered Thoth Tarot, Remedios Varo’s surreal paintings inspired by tarot symbolism, or Xul Solar’s colorful reinterpretation of the deck, each artist transformed familiar symbols into a unique visual language.
The Morgan Library and Museum also places Tarot within the broader history of illustrated books and manuscripts. Medieval illuminated manuscripts demonstrate how images have long served as a language alongside written text, preparing readers to interpret symbolism rather than simply observe pictures. The exhibition suggests that Tarot cards function much the same way; each card is a carefully constructed visual narrative filled with symbols that invite interpretation.
Walking through the galleries I was enamored and filled with inspiration. Seeing centuries of artists reinterpret the same symbols made it easy to understand why Tarot continues to resonate today. You could feel the history of how people feel connected to guided interpretation by art and images. The art represents how one symbol can feel connected to a larger meaning to life. Whether visitors arrive with an interest in history, literature, art or mysticism, Tarot! Renaissance Symbols, Modern Visions offers a thoughtful look at how a centuries-old deck of cards became one of the world’s most influential visual languages.
