Four of Cups

[pyraxis]

A prison made of stone and colour.

In the traditional Rider-Waite, a hand comes out of the clouds, offering a fourth cup to a person who has found no succour in the three they have. Here, the hand is made of cristal, and anything it might offer is laced with corruption. Nor is there escape to be found in water that's iced over.

The only way out is through.

Comments

[spacerobotcrew]

This one is sad but omg the glowy lighting is awesome.

[pyraxis]

I love caves! :D

[tigerweave]

I saw glow worms in middle earth 15 yrs ago. Like this... magic

[silk_dragon_zen]

Beautifully done, and so true: the only way out is nearly always through

— Dor

[pyraxis]

Thank you!

In our cosmology, for the toren, that can mean literally through the rock. But there's more than one passage the woman doesn't see.

[tigerweave]

I've never had a lot to do with tarot so forgive me if this is a dumb question but why isn't she happy with the 3? And what is the 3 card meaning? Does it correspond? Like does it show you're unhappy with the 3?

It's a great picture. I think her face and posture are particularly well done.

[pyraxis]

Hey Verdigris! I know Leonie's done a lot of tarot and used to be a reader, so I hate to step on her toes, but I can talk about what I intended here.

I haven't done the three of cups yet, and I try not to read too much about the meanings before I'm ready to paint it, but a quick Google says it's a happy card about friendship, sisterhood, celebration. If you wanted to make the three cups here the same as those ones, I'd say the one in the background then is romantic love.

But yeah... the thing of tarot is to invite people to put their own meanings onto it, so the cup in the background could be creative inspiration, or family love, or whatever the querent needed it to be.

What I wanted to capture here is the dynamic of paralyzing inaction. In a way it's like the Eight of Swords, the first one I ever did, but that one's about being trapped by your beliefs and thoughts, and this one's about being trapped by your emotions. I wanted to subvert the traditional Rider-Waite meaning, which paints the person in the card as being bored or dissatisfied with their life, and turn it darker and sharper.

The traditional bored person is tired of what they have (the three cups) and looking for something new and exciting. But in my interpretation, there are concrete reasons why the three cups are no longer okay - represented by the ice, but it's only nominally ice, it's also lightning. It isn't meant to be open to the interpretation of "you should just be grateful for what you have", because there is clearly something wrong. There's another card for being grateful for what you have, and it's not this one. There are also concrete reasons for the person's hesitation to embrace the exciting new cup, beyond just that it's behind their back and maybe they haven't noticed it yet. That's where it ties into the unique quirks of Karn - because normally someone looking at a crystal sees its beauty and intricacy, but any toren who's dealt with speritu will look at that cristal and see siren-song danger. So is the rainbow liquid an opportunity or is it an oil slick? Is it a portal you can dive through or is it a trap?

Which is why the person in the card is sitting curled in on themselves instead of reaching for it.

(edited for clarity)