The Tarot Nouveau, French Tarot Nouveau or Bourgeois Tarot deck is a general style of tarot

Tarot

The tarot |trionfi]] and later as tarocchi, tarock, and others) is a pack of cards , used from the mid-15th century in various parts of Europe to play a group of card games such as Italian tarocchini and French tarot...

 playing card

Playing card

A playing card is a piece of specially prepared heavy paper, thin cardboard, plastic-coated paper, cotton-paper blend, or thin plastic, marked with distinguishing motifs and used as one of a set for playing card games...

 deck. The Tarot Nouveau differs from other styles of tarot deck, such as the Tarot of Marseilles

Tarot of Marseilles

The Tarot of Marseilles , also widely known by the French designation Tarot de Marseille, is one of the standard patterns for the design of tarot cards...

 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, such as French Tarot. In the French language, this deck is often called the tarot à jouer or playing tarot. This usage is distinct from cartomancy

Cartomancy

Cartomancy is fortune-telling or divination using a deck of cards. Forms of cartomancy appeared soon after playing cards were first introduced into Europe in the 14th century...

 and other divinatory

Divination

Divination is the attempt to gain insight into a question or situation by way of an occultic standardized process or ritual...

 purposes, for which the tarot is most commonly known outside of Continental Europe

Europe

Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...

.

Origin

This pattern is said to have 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 numbers used in modern writing. These numerals were placed in the center of the panels in a Fraktur

Fraktur

Fraktur is a calligraphic hand and any of several blackletter typefaces derived from this hand. The word derives from the past participle fractus of Latin frangere...

 font similar to cards which were used for the German Tarock game of Cego

Cego

Cego , also called Ceco, from the Latin "Caecus" or "blind", is a trick-taking card game played mainly in Baden, Schwarzwald, and Lake Constance, in Switzerland. The game is similar to French tarot and Austrian Tarock...

. In the early 1900s, French cardmakers such as Grimaud appropriated this pattern and would later add the corner indices now found on most modern card decks.

Cards

The cards bear the French suit

Suit (cards)

In playing cards, a suit is one of several categories into which the cards of a deck are divided. Most often, each card bears one of several symbols showing to which suit it belongs; the suit may alternatively or in addition be indicated by the color printed on the card...

s of Spades, Hearts, Diamonds and Clubs, rather than the Italian suits of Swords, Cups, Coins and Wands (typical in tarot

Tarot

The tarot |trionfi]] and later as tarocchi, tarock, and others) is a pack of cards , used from the mid-15th century in various parts of Europe to play a group of card games such as Italian tarocchini and French tarot...

 decks used for Cartomancy) or the traditional German suits of Hearts, Bells, Acorns and Leaves. The "pip" and court cards of the Tarot Nouveau (which are called Minor Arcana

Minor Arcana

|thumb|[[King of Swords]] card from a Minor Arcana deckThe Minor Arcana of occult or divinatory tarot refers to the portion of a Tarot deck that consists of 56 cards. The Minor Arcana are roughly similar to the cards found in a common deck of playing cards...

 in cartomancy

Cartomancy

Cartomancy is fortune-telling or divination using a deck of cards. Forms of cartomancy appeared soon after playing cards were first introduced into Europe in the 14th century...

) are similar in format to those of the traditional 52-card Anglo-American deck with the addition of the Knight court card.

The atouts or trumps depict genre scenes of whimsical early 19th-century social activities of the well-to-do European bourgeoisie

Bourgeoisie

In sociology and political science, bourgeoisie describes a range of groups across history. In the Western world, between the late 18th century and the present day, the bourgeoisie is a social class "characterized by their ownership of capital and their related culture." A member of the...

, 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

Major Arcana

The Major Arcana or trumps are a suit of twenty-two cards in the tarot deck. They serve as a permanent trump suit in games played with the tarot deck, and are distinguished from the four standard suits collectively known as the Minor Arcana...

 of "esoteric" decks used for cartomancy

Cartomancy

Cartomancy is fortune-telling or divination using a deck of cards. Forms of cartomancy appeared soon after playing cards were first introduced into Europe in the 14th century...

, 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 (but not all) 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 1-10 (the Ace

Ace

An ace is a playing card. In the standard French deck, an ace has a single suit symbol located in the middle of the card, sometimes large and decorated, especially in the case of the Ace of Spades...

 bears the number 1 instead of the familiar "A", and usually ranks low), and four court cards: Jack (Valet), Knight (Chevalier or Cavalier), Queen (Dame) and King (Roi). The other 22, shown in the top two rows of the image below, 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 Anglo-American deck for playing purposes. The Fool, though similar in appearance and function to the Joker card of poker decks, has differing origins (see Joker

Joker (playing card)

Joker is a special type of playing card found in most modern decks, or else a type of tile in some Mahjong game sets.-Name:It is believed that the term "Joker" comes from a mispronunciation of Jucker, the German/Alsatian name for the game Euchre. The card was originally introduced in about 1860 for...

for more information).

Trumps

The 21 trumps in a tarot nouveau deck are as follows:

General theme	Card Number	Card Theme	Urban Representation	Rural Representation
The four ages	2	Childhood	Children playing in the park	Boys playing at the fête
	3	Youth	Group of youths in the park	Three maidens in town clothes
	4	Maturity	In the Office	Women with children
	5	Old Age	The Grandfather	The Grandmother
The four times of day	6	Morning	Breakfast	Mowing the Wheat
	7	Afternoon	Discussion in the Parlour	Rest in the Field
	8	Evening	The Music Room	The Family Reunited on the Doorstep
	9	Night	Returning home after hunting	The Night Watch
The four elements	10	Earth		The Mine
		Air		Shepherd in the Mountains
	11	Water		Boating on the Lake
		Fire		The Picnic
The Four Leisures	12	Dance	Soirée	Folk Dance
	13	Shopping	The Store	The Village Store
	14	Open air	Hunting	Fishing
	15	Visual Arts	Photography	Painting
The Four Seasons	16	Spring	Gardener in the Park	Sheep Shearing
	17	Summer	At the Races	Drying the Wheat
	18	Autumn	At the Market	Threshing Wheat
	19	Winter	Skating	The Vigil
The Game	20	The Game	Cards	Bowling
Folly	21	Collective	The Carnival	The Military Parade
	1	Individual	The Sad Clown	The Fool and the Ballerina

External links

• International Playing Card Society http://i-p-c-s.org/pattern/ps-18.html
• Subject matter of the trump pictures http://l-pollett.tripod.com/cards28.htm
• 19th century Wuest edition http://lexic.ru/WWPCM/decks02/d00638/d00638.htm
• Evolution of Grimaud edition http://lexic.ru/WWPCM/decks/d00055/d00055.htm