Month: August 2019

I was pleasantly surprised to see Elle magazine reporting today on a new collection of high end cosmetics being marketed with packaging that evokes tarot cards. MAC Cosmetics commissioned South Korean artist Park Hye-Min to create packaging using the Sun, Moon and Star cards for the new line. It is clear that tarot is both trendy and popular. Market research that estimates the size of the tarot market, which in our hyper-materialistic society would be the surest measure of tarot’s popularity, is difficult to come by. That such research has been done should probably be proof enough that tarot has achieved some level of popularity and economic success. It has long been my suspicion that the popularity of tarot climbs in uncertain times; Britain on the eve of World War I, the U.S. during the depression, and again during the 1960s, which in addition to being a stressful decade was also the decade of the greatest explosion of worldwide arts and letters since the renaissance (in my opinion). And now, the U.S. (indeed, the world) is once again witnessing stressful times. Perhaps part of tarot’s popularity is that it may offer some answers in times like these. If Tarot’s popularity continues to rise, and if we survive long enough, perhaps some future critics will hold up some tarot decks as proof of the vibrancy of art in our strange and stressful times.