The Rider-Waite-Smith Chariot Card
A Study in Icon & Iconography & Iconology According to Art History Theories and Jungian Archetypes

Divination and fortune telling are the first things that most people assume, when they see or hear about Tarot cards. However, the Tarot cards have changed in form and function since their first appearance during the early Renaissance (Caldwell, 2018).

For at least five centuries, the Tarot has tenaciously survived the condemnation of church, the persecution of state, and the ridicule of academia (Rosengarten, 2000). Whereas most contemporary literature on Tarot aims to interpret the occult significance of each card, placing exclusive emphasis on the divinatory meanings, this research does not follow the standard pattern, for it is fundamentally ethnographic in its assumption (Adams, 2017). This essay aims to research the form, symbolic artistic imagery (iconography), and related meanings (iconology), of the Rider-Waite-Smith deck of Tarot cards, which have remained relatively similar to previous decks with some alterations throughout 450 years, until the proliferation of New Age decks in the late twentieth century.

In the Confucian sense, Tarot provides the advantage of the thousand words each picture is worth, being easily adaptable because it is inherently neutral and doctrinally foundationless. It carries no particular allegiance to any system of belief that postulates an exclusive claim on truth or reality (Rosengarten, 2000). The Tarot deck contains archetypal symbols that may very possibly relate to the analytical psychology of the Swiss psychologist Carl Gustav Jung. Their obvious correspondence in psychology is to the archetypes of Jung’s collective unconscious (Rosengarten, 2000). They represent the archetypes – consistent, directing patterns of influence that are an inherent part of human nature.

According to Panofsky: “Man’s signs and structures are records because, or as so far as, they express ideas separated from, yet realized by, the process of signaling and building.”(Panofsky, 1955, p. 5). Panofsky theorizes that in order to create an analysis for a work of art, it has to be divided into three strata.

The first stratum is the pre-iconographical description of the work of art according to the primary or natural subject matter. These are pure forms that include configurations of line, color, or particularly-shaped lumps representing natural objects such as plants, animals, human beings, houses, etc., that constitute a factual or expressional viewing of the world of artistic motifs (Panofsky, 1955).

The second stratum is the conventional subject matter, named iconography, that is the branch of art history, which concerns itself with the subject matter or meaning of works of art, as opposed to their form, meaning a description and classification of images (Panofsky, 1955).

The third stratum is named iconology, meaning that the method of interpretation arises from synthesis and not analysis, which is the intrinsic meaning or content, captured by ascertaining the underlying principles that reveal the basic attitude of a class, a religious or philosophical persuasion, a period, and a nation (Panofsky, 1955).

As the 1909 Rider-Waite-Smith Tarot deck was not designed and created within a vacuum, I shall also utilize pictorial examples of cards from diverse previous Tarot decks to enhance the significance of the iconography that has been imbedded into this particular deck. To create a coherent body of research it is also necessary to compare the iconography and iconology of the cards from the Rider-Waite-Smith deck, which is the focus of this research, to some of its predecessors.

The deck is divided into two major groups, the Major Arcana and the Minor Arcana. In twelfth- and thirteenth-century Italian and French art, one finds a great number of classical motifs, with pagan themes transformed into Christian ones. Consequently, the figures of ancient mythology became associated with Christian faith and defined in a moralistic way (Adams, 2017). The Italian illustrators of classical works of art could not help altering the stylistic character of the originals but they did not ignore them, and saw the aesthetic qualities through their own eyes (Panofsky, 1955).

The earliest Italian Tarocchi/Tarot decks we know of are from the court of Milan in the early fifteenth century, named the Visconti-Sforza, which were painted by hand and decorated in gold or silver foil, with a metal punch. The Sola-Busca Tarocchi deck is both the only complete deck and the oldest deck from the late fifteenth century that still exists. The deck was produced in Ferrara for a Venetian patrician of the ancient ducal d’Este family associated with the prominent Renaissance families, and was probably completed by the year 1491, because it took a considerable time and funds to create, design, and decorate (Adams, 2017).

From Italy, the Tarot cards reached France. Before the Tarot de Marseille deck, there were a few similar decks in France, Belgium, and Switzerland that were based on the Italian Tarocchi’s imagery, with some changes. Robert Place maintains that by 1507, Marseilles, France, and the surrounding area, had become a center of Tarot production outside of Italy. Eventually, the manufacturers of the Marseilles Tarot cards numbered the trumps with roman numerals, labeled them with French titles, and standardized their order (Place, 2005).

By the mid-nineteenth century, the Tarot moved across the channel to Victorian England, where occultism and spiritualism were gaining a wide appeal, becoming popular pastimes for upper-class families. Movements like the Rosicrucian Society and the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn incorporated into their Tarot decks symbols of Egyptian magic, Qabalah, Enochian magic, Christian mysticism, Hermeticism, Freemasonry, Celtic Revival, and alchemy. During that period of time the disciplines of anthropology, archeology, and Egyptology began to develop, and transportation, printing, and communication techniques were improved, consequently facilitating the wide distribution of various Tarot decks for the use of cartomancy.

In 1909, British member of the Order of the Golden Dawn and author Arthur Edward Waite, with the cooperation of the American artist Pamela Colman-Smith — who was also a member of the order — designed the Rider-Waite-Smith Tarot Deck. Pamela-Colman-Smith was the first artist to use characters as representative images in the Minor Arcana cards as well. Rather than just showing a group of cups, coins, wands, or swords, she designed human beings, flora, and fauna into the mix, and created a rich tapestry of occult symbolism that set the gold standard for modern Tarot decks (ThoughtCo. 2019).

Arthur Edward Waite supplemented the Rider-Waite-Smith Tarot deck with his book, The Pictorial Key to the Tarot – Being Fragments of a Secret Tradition under the Veil of Divination (1909). The imagery of the cards draws heavily on symbolism and ritual in Freemasonry that emerge from a mix of Biblical, Greek, and Egyptian philosophy and religion (Amberstone, 2008). The staffs, swords, coins, and cups were transformed into the tools of the magician, becoming wands, swords, pentacles, and cups (Place, 2005).

This interdisciplinary research is implemented according to Art History theories and takes a Folkloristic approach, using Jungian methodologies to assess the impact of material folk culture on symbology and the collective unconscious. The goal of this study is to use these methodologies to focus on and decipher the underlying meaning of the symbols, iconography, and iconology of the Rider-Waite-Smith deck of Tarot cards based on the visual themes of similar Tarot decks throughout the centuries.

As it is impossible to explain the characteristics of all of the cards in such a short article, I shall choose the Rider-Waite-Smith Chariot card, and explain the specific oicotypification process it underwent during the 450 years between the Visconti-Sforza and the Rider-Waite-Smith decks.

The Rider-Waite-Smith Major Arcana number seven card is the Chariot. Taking over most of the card’s design, the charioteer, his chariot, and the two sphinxes are depicted frontally. The sky is yellow, and at the bottom of the scene the grass is green. At the left and right sides of the card are various buildings with red roofs and a castle, creating the shape of an enclosed or walled city in the background, while under the buildings there is a river that might symbolize one of the four rivers flowing from Eden (O’Neill, 2019).

The charioteer seems to be a young king wearing a cuirass and a crown on his shoulder-length blond hair. The cuirass of the charioteer represents his defense against the baser forces of life. It is secured with five gold studs, denoting the four elements and the quintessence (Cirlot, 2001). The double crown is made of laurel leaves under a golden crown with an eight-pointed star, which connects him with the golden understanding of the sun and divine light, thus symbolizing the interceding function between man and God. Moreover, the eight-pointed star symbolizes the state of spirit that has reached the eighth level of perfection, the level of the fixed and eternal stars of heaven (Amberstone, 2008).

The shoulder epaulets of his armor are the faces of Urim and Thummim (Van Dam, 1996), the seekers of the divine will of God through an oracular medium (Kaplan, 1972). He wears white armguards on top of a black and blue tunic, and has a white breastplate with a golden trim. There is a white square on the charioteer’s chest, interpreted as a four-sided figure, and the superimposition by the addition of three primary colors produces white light or a Tattva, which is a Sanskrit word that means principle, reality, or truth. According to various Indian schools of philosophy, it is an element or aspect of reality (O’Neill, 2019). The sword belt around the charioteer’s waist has the symbols of the astrological sign of cancer and the moon. In his left hand, he holds a scepter surmounted by a triangle and a sphere.

The cubical chariot, with its two bright yellow wheels, has four posts holding a light blue canopy decorated with stars, assumed to be Freemasonry symbolism since many Freemasonic lodges have the ceiling of their meeting room painted to represent the sky. The four posts supporting the canopy symbolize the four elements the world is made of, meaning the four conditions in which energy can exist: air, fire, water, and earth (Cavendish, 1986). These posts may also symbolize the four Jungian functions of sensation, intuition, thinking, and feeling, which are the four essential pillars of psychic being (Nichols, 1980). In front of the chariot is the symbol of the lingam and the yoni in red. This implies the joining of the sexes to represent duality and unity. This symbol is surmounted by a blue, winged, golden globe (Cavendish, 1986). The golden globe is also an emblem of the Egyptian winged globe, representing the sublimation of matter, and its evolutive motion.

The presumption is that the image of the Chariot is influenced by Ezekiel’s vison, the Qabalah, and the old Roman custom of triumph awarded to a successful general (Cavendish, 1986). It is also related to the Merkavah mysticism in which mythical individuals in the Bible, like Enoch and Rabbi Akiva, ascended to the seventh heavenly hall to stand in front of God, and returned to earth while still alive (Cordovero, 2019). Moreover, the Chariot’s number, seven, associates it with fate, destiny, transformation, the seven acts of creation in Genesis, and the seven stages of transformation, in alchemy, under the influence of seven metals and seven planets (Nichols, 1980).

The Chariot is pulled by two sphinxes, of which one is black with white eyes and the other is white with black eyes, yet the charioteer has no reins and the sphinxes are pulling in two different directions. The sphinxes are, however,  looking in the same direction. They have no yokes and appear to grow out of the Chariot. The black sphinx symbolizes vice and the white sphinx symbolizes virtue, meaning the one conquered and the other vanquished; both having become the servants of the Magus (Hudson, 2004).Since this is magical power in its fullness, the charioteer is not driving the vehicle but is pulled by the sphinxes instead. According to Waite:

…it is to be understood for this reason that  the question of the sphinx is concerned with a Mystery of Nature and not of the world of Grace, to which the charioteer could offer no answer… that the planes of his conquest are manifest or external and not within himself; that the liberation which he effects may leave himself in the bondage of the logical understanding… that the tests of initiation through which he has passed in triumph are to be understood physically or rationally; and that if he came to the pillars of that Temple between which the High Priestess is seated, he could not open the scroll called Tora, nor if she questioned him could he answer. He is not hereditary royalty and he is not priesthood… (Waite, 1909, http://www.sacred-texts.com/tarot/pktar07.htm [13/10/2002 14:25:16]).

Delving into the iconography and iconology of the previous Chariot cards, as seen below in both the Visconti-Sforza and the Tarot de Marseilles, the Chariot is pulled by horses and not sphinxes. The charioteer in the Visconti-Sforza deck is a queen, while the charioteer in the Tarot de Marseilles is a king. The Sola-Busca card is named “Deo Tauro,” who was Chief Tetrarch of Galatia, Asia Minor, and a loyal ally of the Roman Republic. In this case, although “Deo Tauro” (meaning god bull) sits in a chariot but is not pulled by horses, he serves as a reference to the constellation Taurus that lies at the heart of the Mithraic mystery cult (Waite, 1909).

Below are examples of the Visconti-Sforza, the Sola-Busca, and the Tarot de Marseilles Chariot Tarot cards.

In Jungian terms, there are three main explanations of the Chariot card. The first one is that the sphinxes are a symbol of the terrible mother, who is the female archetype of destruction and stands for the enigma, the mystery, and the riddle the charioteer has to solve (Cavendish, 1986). The second explanation is that the charioteer represents the self in Jungian psychology. The chariot is the human body and thought, in its transitory aspects relative to things terrestrial. The horses are the life force, and the lack of reins denotes intelligence and will power (Cirlot, 2001). The third explanation is that the Chariot pictures a state of ego inflation, named hubris, which in Jungian psychological terms represents a condition in which the ego/the center of individual consciousness identifies with an archetypal figure transcending human limitations (Nichols, 1980). In various myths, mortals who overreached their human bounds, and sometimes even gods who were subject to hubris, were punished.

In conclusion, the Chariot Tarot card has changed since it originated in the Visconti-Sforza deck. Waite and Smith preferred to continue the concept of a king on the Chariot, similar to the Sola-Busca and Tarot de Marseilles deck, instead of a queen as on the Visconti-Sforza card. The reins and the horses with their wings on the Visconti-Sforza card disappeared by the time the Chariot Card became “Deo Tauro” in the Sola-Busca deck. Waite and Smith changed the two red front posts and the two blue back posts that hold the canopy in the Tarot de Marseilles Chariot to uniform grey, and the sideways-slanted thin wheels became straight thick wheels. They added the background of an enclosed city behind the Chariot and a flowing river, a design not found in any of the existing Chariot cards. Essentially, Waite and Smith based most of the design of their Chariot card on that of Éliphas Lévi, who named it a rectified Chariot card. Below is a picture of the Éliphas Lévi Chariot Tarot card.

When Lévi’s ideas migrated across the English Channel, they were adopted, with modifications, by the Golden Dawn and became the bedrock of esoteric Tarot in the English-speaking world, having tremendous influence on the evolution of Tarot that Waite incorporated into his deck (“French Occult Tarot” Tarot Heritage all about Tarot History and Historic Decks, 2019).

Similar to Éliphas Lévi’s Chariot Tarot card, Waite and Smith kept all the same symbols explaining that: “…on this account I have accepted the variation of Éliphas Lévi.” (Waite, 1909, http://www.sacred-texts.com/tarot/pktar07.htm [13/10/2002 14:25:16]). It seems that Waite and Smith were largely influenced by Éliphas Lévi’s Chariot card. As opposed to many occasions when they inserted additional symbols to the depiction of the card, in this case they preferred to keep all of Lévi’s illustrations for their own Chariot card, added a background and a few more symbols like the lingam, yoni, and the Egyptian golden, winged globe. They disregarded the association of each Tarot trump with a letter of the Hebrew alphabet — as Lévi did by placing all seventy-eight cards on the Tree of Life — removing the Hebrew letter Zain on the right side of the card. Moreover, they essentially moderated the stiff illustration of the charioteer’s face and the severely gazing sphinxes, and colored the card.

In conclusion, the public of the early/mid-twentieth century, the age of science and technology, was less interested in the occult and thus the Tarot, used as a divinatory tool mainly by cartomancers, slowly faded into the background. The Tarot had a massive revival during the late 60s and early 70s of the twentieth century with the growth of New Age spirituality. Since then, an abundance of new decks have been created, based on a variety of themes including popular television series and movies. Amongst them: the Disney Tarot deck, the King Arthur deck, the Mystic Faerie deck, the Twin Peaks deck, the Astral deck, the Dragon Age deck, etc. It seems that the Tarot deck has returned with full force as a divinatory tool, despite the era of science and technology. Only time will tell what the future will bring for the Tarot deck, as it may cease being fashionable and retreat once more into the dark shadows of anonymity, or continue its popular resurgence and become even more widespread than it is at present.