XVIII- Moonlight
From The Long Century Tarot
Raja Ravi Varma lived from 1848 to 1906, and is celebrated as one of India’s greatest artists. He combined European techniques with Indian sensibilities, but more importantly, he made copies of his paintings as much cheaper lithographs, allowing a wider audience to have access to his work, and high art in general.
The foreground of this card is his painting Ladies in the Moonlight. Like The Moon in traditional decks, these ladies represent dreams and intuition as they gaze into the the unknown. The way their sarees mirror each other makes me think that while they could be friends or lovers or sisters, they could just as easily represent the Self and the Shadow Self. Also this painting is just gorgeous.
(PS- While I have your attention, I’m still looking for suggestions of amazing people who were doing their thing between 1789 and 1914! Also I just noticed there’s a tiny white line at the top– will fix that before printing!)
© Bridget Melnyk (that’s me!)