Tarot Nouveau
The Tarot Nouveau, French Tarot Nouveau or Bourgeois Tarot deck is a pattern of tarot cards. As such it differs from those tarot decks used in fortune-telling, such as the Tarot of Marseilles and Rider-Waite decks, in that the Tarot Nouveau is designed solely for playing the various tarot card games for which the 78-card tarot deck was originally devised. In the French language, this deck is often called the tarot à jouer or playing tarot. This usage is distinct from cartomancy and other divinatory purposes, for which the tarot is most commonly known outside Continental Europe. This deck is most commonly found in France, Wallonia, Romandy, and Québec for French Tarot; and Denmark for Danish Tarok.
Origin
This pattern originated in the late 19th century with the C.L. Wüst cardmaker of Frankfurt, Germany. This earlier edition lacked the corner indices found on the later 20th century version published by French cardmakers such as Grimaud, but the values of trumps changed from Latin numerals common on older decks to Arabic numerals used in modern writing. These numerals were placed in the center of the panels in a Fraktur font similar to cards which were used for the German Tarock game of Cego. In the early 1900s, French cardmakers appropriated this pattern and would later add the corner indices now found on most modern card decks. The largest manufacturers of this pattern are Cartamundi and Piatnik & Söhne.Cards
The cards bear the French suits of spades, hearts, diamonds and clubs, rather than the Italian suits of swords, cups, coins and batons or the traditional German suits of hearts, bells, acorns and leaves. The "pip" and court cards of the Tarot Nouveau are similar in format to those of the traditional 52-card deck, with the addition of the knight face card.The atouts or trumps depict genre scenes of whimsical early 19th-century social activities of the well-to-do European bourgeoisie, hence a common alternate name for this deck, the "Bourgeois Tarot". This is in contrast to the trionfi of Italian Tarocco decks and the Major Arcana of "esoteric" decks used for cartomancy, which have allegorical illustrations and, in cartomancy, interpretive meaning.
All cards use corner indices as opposed to the top-center indices of older tarot decks and their "esoteric" descendants used for readings; this allows the cards to be held in a single hand as is required for many card games. They also include reversible art for court and trump cards while traditional and modern reading tarots have full-length character art.
Composition
The Tarot Nouveau deck, like most tarot decks, is composed of 78 cards. 56 are suited in the traditional French suits, with 14 cards per suit; ten "pip" cards with values 1 to 10, and four court cards: jack, knight, queen and king. The other 22 are the 21 atouts or trumps and one fool. The deck is thus primarily different from the 52-card poker deck in the existence of the separate trump "suit", and the addition of the knight court card. With these cards removed the deck is identical to the 52-card deck for playing purposes. The face cards do not use the Parisian pattern but have their own unique illustrations. the fool, though similar in appearance and function to the joker card of poker decks, has differing origins.Trumps
The 21 trumps in a Tarot Nouveau deck each have two scenes taking up the graphic portion of the card, in a roughly reversible fashion, but unlike the court cards which have similar reversible art, most of the cards' scenes are not rotationally symmetrical. Each card has one scene show an "urban" representation of a particular trait or idea, while the other side depicts a more "rural" interpretation. These themes, instead of the more historic depictions, such as those used in the Tarot de Marseille, were chosen to represent tarot trumps in Unicode 7.0. The scenes depicted are as follows:| General theme | Card number | Unicode character | Card theme | Urban representation | Rural representation |
| The four ages | 2 | ? | Childhood | Children playing in the park | Boys playing at the fête |
| The four ages | 3 | ? | Youth | Group of youths in the park | Three maidens in town clothes |
| The four ages | 4 | ? | Maturity | In the office | Women with children |
| The four ages | 5 | ? | Old Age | Grandfather | Grandmother |
| The four times of day | 6 | ? | Morning | Breakfast | Mowing the wheat |
| The four times of day | 7 | ? | Afternoon | Discussion in the parlour | Rest in the field |
| The four times of day | 8 | ? | Evening | Music room | The family reunited on the doorstep |
| The four times of day | 9 | ? | Night | Returning home after hunting | The night watch |
| The four elements | 10 | ? | Earth | The mine | |
| The four elements | 10 | ? | Air | Shepherd in the mountains | |
| The four elements | 11 | ? | Water | Boating on the lake | |
| The four elements | 11 | ? | Fire | The picnic | |
| The four leisures | 12 | ? | Dance | Soirée | Folk dance |
| The four leisures | 13 | ? | Shopping | The store | The village store |
| The four leisures | 14 | ? | Open air | Hunting | Fishing |
| The four leisures | 15 | ? | Visual arts | Photography | Painting |
| The four seasons | 16 | ? | Spring | Gardener in the park | Sheep shearing |
| The four seasons | 17 | ? | Summer | At the races | Drying the wheat |
| The four seasons | 18 | ? | Autumn | At the market | Threshing wheat |
| The four seasons | 19 | ? | Winter | Skating | The vigil |
| The game | 20 | ? | The game | Cards | Bowling |
| Folly | 21 | ? | Collective | The carnival | The military parade |
| Folly | 1 | ? | Individual | The sad clown | The fool and the ballerina |